Has the US started a new war across the Horn of Africa?

Fighting is raging across Somalia as the people of that country are increasingly resisting the invasion and occupation of their country by US directed foreign mercenary troops from Uganda and Ethiopia. Over 50,000 refugeees have fled Mogadishu already, and the war there threatens to spark clashes between Ethiopia and Eritrea, too, eventually. All this because English only assholes sitting in their Washington DC giovernment offices nonchalantly decided like chess players, to move their pawns into action on the African board. The resulting conflicts potentially could destabilize the Congo once again, not to mention to destabilize Sudan further.

Funny how all the Darfur fethishists seem so silent now about what the US is now doing to Somalia. Check out aljazeera.net’s reporting on these 2 locales- Somalia and Sudan for a breath of fresh air in reporting.

The best thing for the entire continent of Africa would be for all the US and European military interventions into Africa’s affairs to immediately end. The UN has nothing to contribute positively to bringing peace to Africa neither, since the UN Security Council is itself firmly in the hands of the Bush Adminstration and its Democratic Party allies, that together make up the US government.

Today at the vigil- Darfur

Today at the noon vigil on Nevada Street, I held a sign that said ‘Hands Off Iran’ and was talking with my Mennonite friend who was holding a sign that said ‘PEACE’. Lo’ and Behold if my favorite Right Wing bicyclist came by once again.

He always has a sour look on his face, not just when he sees us, but in general I rather do believe. In short, he is the Sour Right Wing Bicyclist of the Colorado Springs barrio I live in, and he always passes by with a nasty and arrogant look on his face. He flies by so rapidly, that he usually just has a one word or two that he let’s fly when he sees us on the street corner with our signs. Today it was, ‘DARFUR’.

So just what was his word of wisdom to us miscreants supposed to mean, I thought? Why did he say what he did, at this time? Was it simply a message for us to have a sign calling for peace in Darfur, or was it more than just that? Would he get off his bike and protest in common cause with us if we had included mention of Darfur amongst our signs? I rather think not.

In fact, this particular Right Winger has shown his opposition to our vigil more than a few times before. When he shouted out ‘Darfur”, he was counterposing that cause to ours. This is bullshit, because we would like peace to come to the Darfur regions of Sudan and Chad, too. Who can be for a continuation of the slaughter that has been occurring there? Only a lunatic, I think.

How sad it is, though, that so many have deluded themselves into believing that an end to conflict anywhere, though, is to send in the Pentagon! That’s where we part company with those who campaign around the issue of Darfur. And in the case of this one sour pus neighborhood bicyclist, he was counterposing campaiging for military intervention from the US government and its allies into Sudan, against campaigning to end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan by US troops, plus probable future extension of US warmaking into Iran. Somalia alone shows that the US is no peacemaker force anywhere. Not to mention the example of Haiti.

Economic aid to Africa, including Sudan. Not military. If I could put all this on a sign I would. But I doubt that that would satisfy my favorite Right Wing Bicyclist. He’s not all that concerned about Darfur at all, except as an excuse to support the Pentagon. I’d like to think otherwise, but his past behavior regarding our vigil is not a good reason to do so.

Washington DC’s Torture International at work in Somalia

The US has succeeded in taking a relatively quiet and tranquil situation in Somalia and converting it back into yet another human rights disaster. Now, Somalia is another country occupied by brigades of foreign troops all led by the Pentagon. And where the Pentagon goes, the use of torture soon follows. Has anybody heard of their supposed representatives, Democratic or Republican, opposing this US terrorism underway in Somalia? MIA once again…..
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Rights group slams ‘rendition’ of Somalis
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Monday, April 02, 2007

NAIROBI: Human Rights Watch on Saturday accused the governments of Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and the United States of secretly detaining hundreds of people fleeing the deadly conflict in Somalia. “Each of these governments has played a shameful role in mistreating people fleeing a war zone,” said Georgette Gagnon, HRW’s deputy Africa director. “Kenya has secretly expelled people, the Ethiopians have caused dozens to disappear, and US security agents have routinely interrogated people held incommunicado,” he added. In a statement, the rights panel detailed “arbitrary detention, expulsion and apparent enforced disappearance of dozens of individuals who fled the fighting” between Ethiopia-backed Somali troops and the powerful Islamist movement from December through January 2007. HRW said since late December, Kenyan security forces arrested at least 150 individuals from some 18 different nationalities at the Liboi and Kiunga border crossing points with Somalia.

“The Kenyan authorities then transferred these individuals to Nairobi where they were detained incommunicado and without charge for weeks in violation of Kenyan law,” it said. The rights body said the US and other national intelligence services interrogated several foreign nationals while they were being detained in Nairobi, where they were also denied access to legal counsel and their consular representatives. “At least 85 people were then secretly deported from Kenya to Somalia in what appears to be a joint rendition operation of those individuals of interest to the Somali, Ethiopian, or US governments,” the statement said. – AFP

Get the US and its hired goons out of Somalia

It has been weeks since the US and its ally Ethiopia invaded Somalia. Invasions of other countries, lest we forget, are violations of international law. Unfortunately, the United Nations Security Council acts as Bush’s puppet and is once again rubber stamping US imperialist aggression. Now, Mogadishu threatens to spin into total anarchy ala Baghdad.

Every place the US carries its wars, chaos develops and security disintegrates. That goes for whether it is the US international so-called war on drugs, are it’s phoney so-called war on terror. Get the US and its hired goons out of Somalia now. In fact, get them out of Africa altogether!

US troops in African fender benders

Two US troops died in Ethiopia this week. Bush’s soldiers are adrft from their stations in Djibouti a lot these days and we can look for more f’ender benders’ ahead. What with the US Pentagon directing deployment of Ethiopian troops into Somalia and Ugandan troops into Somalia, these traffic accidents will happen.

That last is an interesting item. Ugandan troops are being sent to Somalia as ‘peacekeepers’! Wow, I’m surprised they can find time from fighting the 20 year war taking place n the Northern part of Uganda next to Southern Sudan, all to come across and ‘peacekeep’ for Dubya in Somalia.

Holy Warriors and African Crusades! That’s all Africa needs now, a ‘clash of civilizations’, Christians vs Muslims. Meanwhile, uranium kleeps coming up missing from the Congo (1oo bars or so). Oh well, it’s not really all that radioactive, is it?

AFRICOM and the US/ European drive to control Africa’s oil

The Center for International Policy has an excellent report about the newest US push to further militarize the continent of Africa and control the oil supplies located there. All of this is to be done under the propaganda cover of fighting terrorism, and through the establishment of the new African command operation center (AFRICOM) of the US military, which is already the military coordinator of US interventions into Somalia, into Chad and Sudan, and into Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, and where much of the African oil is located.

No area of Africa will actually be free from US military control when these plans are fully put into place, and antiwar activists should be pushing to oppose the expansions of US and European military organizations into the African continent now. That includes opposing the further deployments of African Union and United Nations Security Council troops as well, since these groups are not autonomous or free of Pentagon control. Not in the least.

After literally killing hundreds of millions of Africans through decades and centuries of European/ US colonialism and imperialism on the continent, the new push to control and loot African oil for the industrialized countries promises much more suffering to come to Africa in the years ahead. The real genocide that is taking place throughout Africa has been in march for a very long time through the entire continent, and can only be ended by giving the boot to the US and Europe and their imperialist armies out of the region altogether. African oil for Africans and not for imperialist based multinational oil companies backed up by the Pentagon! Stop AFRICOM now. We need to stop the genocide across the entire African continent, and that can only be done by getting our own US government’s military demobilized.

(You might want to read the entire CIP report and not just the link I provided to the summary of that report. The link to the entire PDF shown article, if you missed it, is at the bottom of the introduction itself. Very interesting material.)

America government offers up capitalist corruption to replace Islam

As most all of America sits passively waiting for the ‘surge’ to be officially declared as a new war, this time against Iran and Syria, it is a nice time to reflect on what DC is offering all these countries it ‘surges’ into? Why not look at other countries that the US has ‘surged’ against already? How about Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Somalia for example? All ‘threatened’ by Islamic extremists as US imperialist propaganda has continually sung? All needing ‘liberation’ by Christian capitalists coming from abroad, solely to rescue Muslims from Islamic thugs? Isn’t that the diet of nonsense that our idiotic media feeds us night and day?

So what do we have to offer in exchange? Real simple. Crony capitalism, where some tiny grupito of national elite is given billions to cooperate with our US/ European based international monopoly corporations. Then the paper money is thrown out into the wind, where it then trickles down into countrywide heroin production (Afghanistan), European vacations for a cabal of fascist minded Christian Lebanese political thugs, and in Somalia, trips to educations in the US, where warlords’ sons can join the Marine Corp, and then go back as possible US backed heads of state! See Son of Aideed That’s where the money is!

Can you imagine if some foreign power was to invade the US and destroy all the Christian churches here replaceing it only with crony capitalism allied with the occupying powers? We would be home growing a whole plethora of home grown Osama bin Washingtons and Osama bin Jeffersons, all crazy as hell Christian fanatics! Oily Dick and Dumb Dubya would be the far secular Left at that time. Religion will trump total ‘free market’ corruption tied to imperialism any day. It’s like the Pentagon is handing out grow your own Muslim fanatics chia kits everywhere they are being sent! All at the bargain basement price of trillions to American citizens. What a deal we’re getting!

The UN becomes a creature of Bush and The Pentagon in Somalia

As the second US aircraft carrier moves into the Persian Gulf threatening to attack Iran and while Ethiopia is bombing civilians in Mogadishu, the UN is busy rubber stamping the joint Ethiopia/ US invasion and occupation of Somalia. UN troops are being organized to go and occupy Somalia for Dubya. Like the UN occupation of Haiti, the United Nations Security Council has again demonstrated that it is in fact a creature of Washington DC and the Pentagon, and not the world’s nations.

Far from bringing democracy to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush Administration and its Democratic Party loyal ‘opposition’ are spreading mayhem and terror throughout the world. Who would have thought that after decades of the US Right Wing screaming that ‘we’ need to get out of the UN, that in fact they would actually go on to make the UN into a tool of neocon reaction? But it has happened.

The only just thing that American peace activists can call for, is removal of all foreign troops out of Somalia, including those of the UN, US, Ethiopia, and all troops from other African countries bought and mobilized by the US. This onfolding chaos in the Horn of Africa due to the US oil-grabbing war on Islam, illustrates the dangers of calling for US intervention into Darfur/ Chad/ Sudan as some liberal do-gooders are doing. We need to call for European and US troops out of Africa, and not for them to go into countries there with their imperialist troops. That is just common sense.

America’s rolling invasion of Somalia

The US invasion and occupation of Somalia is like that of Haiti, nobody is paying much attention. And like the current occupation of Haiti, it ‘rolls’. What do I mean by describing this as a ‘rolling invasion’, for it is a term I think that describes the now prototypical US intervention into the affairs of other nations? Lebanon, too, is being violated by an American rolling invasion as yet another example. So let’s take a quick look at Somalia then, to get a glimpse of the US strategy everywhere for its misnamed ‘war on terrorism’.

In Somalia, the US first arranged an invasion of that country using Ethiopian troops. Then it followed by bombing the country from US ships. Just several weeks after the initial assault using another country’s military, that of Ethiopia, the US is switching them out, and moving a contingent of another country’s military in, 1,500 Kenyans troops. In turn, the US is pressuring Uganda, Rwanda, and South Africa amongst other countries, to follow. And without any interest at home what-so-ever, the US bombed Somalia once again just yesterday!

Imagine how the Somalians feel? As a Muslim country they finally get some semblance of government after 15 years of chaos, but then the US returns once again to topple the cart yet one more time. The US sponsored troops? Thousands of Christian Ethiopians! And to follow up this humiliation using a traditional enemy of one nation, the US brings in yet a second nation’s troops. See the roll? Like rolling waves of a heavy surf on the beach. This will then be followed by an eclectic assortment of other nations, none of which have anything in common with the natives, except for their racial coloring perhaps. And that of being sponsored by George W. Bush!

We could go to Iraq or Afghanistan to see the same nonsensical outsourcing of imperialism once again. But let’s look at Lebanon first. US invasion launched using Israeli troops first. Less than successful, so the Jewish forces pull partially back out. The US then has an unwanted UN move into the country as so-called ‘peacekeepers’. The US then threatens Hezbollah. The US then has France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, and others to cajole the country with being given possible funds to rebuild itself some. The US threatens Syria and Iran. What will Bush roll in with next? US troops? Or maybe Polish troops? Don’t joke, they are already in Iraq and Afghanistan in large numbers. How about Japanese? Don’t joke, they are in Iraq! At the end of 2006, Yugoslavia had its area of Kosovo occupied by troops from 30 nations! Talk about a Tower of Babel!

OK, enough of Lebanon. More rolling imperialism, the grand daddy of idiotic imperialism, Haiti! US invades, deposes the legitimate president, and then partially removes itself, bringing in Canadians (some speak French) and Brazilians (many are Black)! Haitians in the streets improve their language skills in French and Portuguese. But wait! Troops arrive on behalf of Dubya from China, Chile, Argentina, France,Nepal, Jordan, Peru, Sri Lanka!, and Guatemala! (80 of them). I especially think the Haitians are impressed with Sri Lanka and Guatemala coming to visit. Those 2 militaries have such great reputations! And Haitians love a circus!

Isn’t all this rolling imperialism reminiscent of the Romans? They would send in all sorts of barbarians from one end of the Empire into the next. Can we even begin to imagine our own reaction if we were ever to be disrespected with such occupations and warmaking against us, as the US uses against so many others? Imagine if the former Soviet Union had won the Cold Ware, and followed it by occupying our country with troops speaking 20 different languages, 30 different cultures, etc.? That certainly would have gotten us into an enduring peace, for sure! lol.

Where will the US invasion of Somalia roll off to? What new group of heathens to trample on? Will any American ever really give a damn about these smaller societies that get run roughshod over by their government? Liberals are too busy trying ot get the US to send troops to Chad and Darfur to notice much where the troops are actually at. Some have yet to figure out that there is a war going on in Afghanistan, for example. Though it is encouraging to see that the latest poll finally finds over 1/2 of Americans are for withdrawal from that country at last. No thanks to the Democratic Party, I might add. Afghanistan is a dirty word for them to mention.

These rolling invasions create nothing but chaos and misery.

Lebanon in ruins

Lebanon lies in ruins after the imperialist allies, the US and Israel, destroyed it once again. Israel’s invasion destroyed about $5 billion dollars worth of civilian infrastructure, and much of South Lebanon’s population has had to pass the Winter amongst the rubble of their former houses and cities.

No help has come, and the only possible assist for them in aid is coming through promises to help from those responsible for the destruction in the first place. At a conference in Paris, the US, France, European Union, and US Arab ally supreme, Saudi Arabia are promising 7.6 dollars of aid mirage to the Lebanese, but only if they do as the imperialists want them to do.

What we have is the mirror landscape that the US has forced upon Iraq and Afghanistan, and seems also determined to force on Iran and Syria in the days ahead. First the US and its allies reduce to rubble your country, and then if you obey us we offer to help repair some of the damage we have done! And everywhere the imperialist US Empire goes it foments warfare race against race, language group against language group, religious sect versus religious sect. Always divide and destroy in order to rule.

US ally, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, in control of the present Lebanese government in great part cooperated with Israel’s last entry into his own country. He thought to use the invasion against his internal opponents, the Shia. Instead, the resistance of the Shia headed Hezbollah to that invasion and destruction, strengthened them and weakened him. He is also held widely responsible for having allowed Lebanon’s foreign debt of $41 billion to have piled up. In short, he is the epitome of corruption, and this is the man the US is supporting against the majority of Lebanon’s population.

We in the US have watched stupid and ignorant from the sidelines, as our government has spread anarchy and chaos from Afghanistan to Iraq to Lebanon to Somalia to where next?….probably Iran, Syria, Jordan, Pakistan, and on beyond. In the last 2 weeks, the Democratic Party voters, that sat passively behind the passivity of their consenting-to-Bush DP leaders, have finally chosen to go out and protest some. The Democrats finally have stirred some. There is a current of optimism and hope in the air for them because of it.

But what of their newly found ability to oppose a little? Is it real, or just a pretense to get the Democratic Party back into office? Are they really opposed to their government’s imperialism? I have my own thoughts to what the true answer actually is. I am less than hopeful that their opposition is anything more than the most shallow and skin deep. I wish that I am proven wrong, but I think that I know my fellow Americans well, and that is what fuels my pessimism. Meanwhile, my heart goes out to the people of Lebanon, who are once again being forced into living in total Hell, all but ignored by those who put them there.

Hannibal, Somalia

NMT- US war planes bombed Hollywood again yesterday in an attempt to kill feared criminal mastermind Hannibal Lector. Human Rights advocates point out that Lector’s guilt has never been established in a court of law. Though his heinous crimes are documented in three blockbuster movies, Lector’s culpability is considered alleged until he has received his day in court. Military strikes meant to assassinate persons suspected of crimes are considered by international legal authorities to be extra-judicial executions. Still others insist that Hannibal is a fictional character played by a Sir Anthony Hopkins who has nothing to do with al-Qaeda, crime or masterminding. Spokesmen for the Defense Department first denied the raids but now admit that Hopkins’ Hannibal was not hit but for the uncounted civilians now dead who were in the way.

PPJPC condemns US bombing of Somalia

Instead of admitting that the US invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are immoral violations of international law, the US government has extended their war into more and more regions of the world. The Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission opposes the most recent US bombing strikes in Somalia. These bombings are acts of war that have not been discussed or voted upon by anyone in the US congress. Further, they follow US government approval and encouragement of Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia, in itself a violation of international law.

The American people are asked to believe that only ‘terrorists’ are being killed and injured when the US conducts bombing raids in countries such as Somalia and Pakistan. In fact, the US is killing many innocent civilians and those casualties are being considered acceptable collateral damage by the Pentagon and the Bush Adminstration. We do not agree.

There is no way to pinpoint targets without unacceptable civilian bloodshed, especially when American forces do not even speak the local language, as is most often the case. We must not sit by and passively accept the resulting carnage without raising our voices in protest and condemnation. Essentially, the American people are being asked by their government to condone a policy of political assassinations that convicts others without trial or jury, and also maims and kills scores of innocent bystanders.

We at Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission reject these illegal acts of war and call on all our elected representatives to help stop this continual warmaking. We encourage everybody to do what they can to actively oppose the US military intervention in the Horn of Africa. Stop the bloodshed, do not feed into it. Do not encourage regional and ethnic conflict.

Download PDF

Taking to the streets on Thurs Jan 11

Plenty of banners availableThough long delayed, the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission is coordinating an action for January 11. We’re going to petition our Senators Allard and Salazar to end US torture and to close down Guantanamo. Cindy Sheehan is visiting Cuba to make that plea and efforts are being coordinated nationwide to call for an end to torture.

Now January 11 will be the day after George Bush’s announcement to increase troop levels in Iraq, in defiance of the will of the American people.

And of course there is the new issue of the US extra-judicial, undeclared-war bombing of Somalia.

And the new Democratic congress which has opted to abstain from discussing the war(s) until its 100 hour domestic reform agenda.

If any of those issues grab you, join us at 1pm Thursday when we’ll march from the J&P offices to Allard’s and then on to Salazar’s, followed by a car-pool to see Congressman Lamborn. Or join MoveOn and others at 5pm in Acacia Park for an impromptu rally.

Ho hum, which country did we invade today?

Where is the John Birch Society when we really need them? For decades they posted big bill boards around the US warning us of the dangers of the UN and ‘one world government’. We have it now for sure, as the US invades and bombs country after country and all pretense of international law has been thrown in the garbage can. The US runs the United Nations which stamps every illegal Bush activity with its followup stamp of supposed legitimization. Except the moral authority of the UN is about at the same level as the honesty of the Bush Adminstration. Low. Very low.

Almost nowhere in the world do any people really see any legitimacy in their rulers. Everywhere it is pretty much the same, with an exception or two to prove the point. Why such lack of faith in the rulers? it’s pretty much because all of them go along with the group of thugs misleading The American Empire. International hate for our own native US ruling thugs rubs off into becoming a growing hate and disrespect for all the local country klans that follow along behind this constant US government terrorism. How much longer will the world just go along silently with all this? They’re going to begin to tear their own local ruling classes of whores to shreds pretty damn soon because this hate can’t just continue to build without any release.

And what is it about our leaders’ addictions to kicking the poor of the Third World in the teeth again and again? They tromp around and pat themselves over and over on the back, but in essence they are the most despicable bullies. The type of bullies whose grandparents murdered off the natives, and held Blacks as property which they treated worse than today we treat our dogs and cats. And everybody knows, too, that America’s ruling class still treats its dogs and cats better than they treat the children of the world. No Humane Society for those kids murdered while I write this commentary, in the very same hours that the US military now rains down its weaponry on its newest found victim, Somalia.

The liberal community here seems numb by this new assault. But it’s time for some indignation instead of prayer. Stop this new miserable escalation of fighting that Bush and The Invertebrate Party are bilaterally engaging in. Always begging, lobbying, and voting for the Invertebrate Party politicians turns the voter him/herself into a spineless jellyfish, too. Get out and demonstrate YOU spineless lazy wimps! I’m talking about the American liberals now. You Tory Republican turds aren’t spineless. Just dumber than shit, that’s all. Not even shit for brains most of you DittoDips. But what’s the excuse for the inability to get indignant and move… for the spineless, lazy Ass kissing liberal?

US aggression against Somalia shows that America’s rulers are truly sick

How much of this continual US military aggression is going to be tolerated by the American people? Both the Democrats and Republicans are criminally responsible for continually breaking international law. They seem to think that they have carte blanche to make war, assassinate, torture, and invade other people’s countries at will! And worse, they have our government continually pushing other countries to do the dirty work for them.

The American people are not for this. We do not have a democratic system in place that gives us recourse to stop these continuous atrocities our government is continually making in our name. God spare us the revenge that will eventually be extracted on us for sitting by passively while these atrocities continue. We may not have a real democracy in place where thesse criminals that call themselves politicians can be removed at the voting booths, but we do have the ability to get out into the streets, make noise, and stay there until we can cause a popular rebellion to change our corporate dictatorship to something more humane.

Get involved! Make sure your local antiwar groups protest this latest military aggression against yet another downtrodden third World country, and get out into the streets with signs, banners, and your physical and personal presence!

Ethiopia Out of Somalia! Get the US out of Somalia! Stop the US government murder and mayhem everywhere! And throw these top Democratic Party and Republican Party politicians into jail where they truly belong.

US sinking into Somalia once again?

Incredible as it may seem, the US appears to be moving back into destabilizing the Horn of Africa once again. It’s like there are not enough problems in the Congo, Sudan/ Chad, Rwanda/ Burundi regions of conflict already for Bush, so the US must provoke reopening conflict in the Horn of Africa/ Somalia zone, too! See AFP article- Eritrea accuses US of masking invasion of Somalia with peacekeeping plan

The last 2 US administrations have absolutely destroyed the credibility of the UN as being a body that functions independently of the Pentagon. Most of the world does not see either NATO or the ‘UN peacekeepers’ as anything other than pure extensions of US militarism, and for good reason, too. UN cooperation with the US bombing and dismemberment of Yugosalvia, UN cooperation in the US destruction of the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, UN cooperation in accepting Israeli Apartheid and its terrorism of the Occupied Territories as norm, UN carrying out the continuation of the US invasion of Haiti, and UN acceptance and complicity of the US-Israeli destruction of Lebanon all have led to nobody still believing that this is a neutral world association anymore. Not that it ever seemed to be that so much, to the majority of the world outside Europe and the Anglophile countries.

It’s time to dump the UN and reestablish a new world body of nations totally outside the control of the US government. The current United Nations is a totally spent organization politically. Not even moving its adminstrative offices out of New York City could ever reestablish any of its credibility at this point. A better name for the UN in its current state would be the United Imperialist Nations (UIN). Except that even the word ‘united’ no longer can be considered to apply, as the imperialist countries continue to develop fissures in the post WW2 alliance amongst themselves.

As to the US via the UN in Somalia? What a disaster this appears to be in the making.

Sept 11 – America Reaps What It Sows!

By Black Liberation Army prisoner of war Jalil Muntaqim.

U.S. International Warfare Initiates World War III Human Rights During Wartime
By Jalil A. Muntaqim

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Americans have displayed their true colors of jingoism, a militaristic spirit of nationalism. Similarly, it was witnessed how the people of Iraq rallied in support of their President, Saddam Hussein, after the U.S. bombed to death 250,000 Iraqis, and continued devastation of that country with collateral damage of 1 million dead women and children. Hence, people rallying in support of their government and representatives is a common phenomenon when a country is attacked by an outsider. The U.S. has been foremost in the world extending foreign policy of free-market economy, to the extent of undermining other countries cultures and ideologies expressed as their way of life. Such conflicts inevitably positions the U.S. as the centerpiece, the bulls-eye for international political dissent, as indicated by demonstrations against the U.S. controlled IMF, WTO and World Bank conferences. The attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon did not occur in a vacuum. The people that carried out the attacks were not blind followers or robots with an irrational hatred of the U.S. peoples. Rather, this attack was part of an overall blowback to U.S. imperialist policy in support of zionist Israel and opposition to fundamentalist Islam.

There are essentially three primary world ideologies or world views: the capitalist free-market economy/democracy; the socialist production economy; and Islamic theocratic government, of which has been in competition for many decades. However, in the last 20 years the socialist economies has been severely subverted and co-opted by free-market economies, the ideals of American style democracy. This isolated, for the most part, Islamic theocratic ideology and system of government as the principle target of the U.S. in its quest for world hegemony. This reality of competing world views and economies is further complicated due to religious underpinning of beliefs that motivates actions, especially as they are expressed by U.S. and Western European christianity and Israel zionist judaism in opposition to Islam. From the struggles of the Crusades to the present confrontation, the struggle for ideological supremacy reigns, as the faithful continue to proselytize in the name of the Supreme Being.

When geopolitics are combined with religious fervor in the character of nationalist identity and patriotism, rational and logical thinking is shoved aside as matters of the moment takes historical precedents. It has often been said that “Truth Crush to the Earth Will Rise Again”. Since truth is relative to ones belief, can it be safely said that America has reaped what it has sowed? The American truth of capitalist christian democracy and its imperialist hegemonic aspirations has crushed both socialist and Islamic world views. It has extended its avaricious tentacles as the world police and economic harbinger of all that is beneficent, in stark denial of its history as a purveyor of genocides, slavery and colonial violence.

The U.S. was the first to use biological-germ warfare on people when it distributed blankets infected with smallpox to Native Americans; it has refused to apologize for Afrikan slavery acknowledging it engaged in a crime against humanity requiring reparations; it is the first and only country to use the atomic bomb on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and intern thousands of Japanese and Italians in this country; it used carpet bombing and defoliates against the peoples of Vietnam; it has initiated embargoes, coup d’etats and assassinations against those it opposes, while propping-up right-wing military dictators; as well as continued military bombing of Vieques. In essence, the U.S. governments hegemonic goals has created the ire of millions of people throughout the world. While domestically, racial profiling, police killing and mass incarceration of Black and Brown people has eroded patriotic sentiments in opposition to white supremacy.

As America weeps and laments its loss, the public find itself joining the torn ranks of those whose heartaches beat opposing U.S. greed and international profiteering. The American public acquiesce to U.S. international folly has cause them to feel the economic pains of those who live daily in poverty. Indeed, Americans should brace for years of economic uncertainty, where the American ideal of freedom and liberty will resemble plight of those who live under the right-wing dictatorships the U.S. has supported. The tyranny suffered by others in the world as a result of U.S. imperialism, has come full circle to visit this country with the wrath of the U.S. own mechanization. Since the U.S. taught and trained right-wing military dictators in the School of the Americas, including the CIA training of Osama bin Laden in the Afghanistan proxy war against the Russians, it will be this same kind of terrorist activist that will be unleashed on American soil, as El-Hajj Malik Shabazz stated after the assassination of John Kennedy, a matter of the chicken coming home to roost. Therefore, American civil liberties and human rights are being garrotted by the yoke of the right-wing in the name of national security. The legalization of U.S. fascism was initiated with the war against political dissent (Cointelpro); the war against organized crime (RICO laws); the war against illegal drugs (plethora of drug laws) and now culminating in the war against terrorism with the American Joint Anti-Terrorist Taskforce and Office of Home Security, further extending police, FBI and CIA powers to undermine domestic civil liberties and human rights.

The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, recently stated that the U.S. need to create a new language in defining how to combat terrorism. This Orwellian propaganda in the media espouses the U.S. is venturing in a new type of warfare to defend the American way of life. However, what this double-speak propagates as a long-term and sustained initiative against terrorism is essentially a way of embellishing and enlarging U.S. counter-insurgency activity it has been engaged in since the advent of the Green Berets, Rangers, Delta Force and Navy Seals. The U.S. has been involved in counter-insurgency activity in Afrika, Latin America and Asia for decades. But due to the September 11, 2001, attack on U.S. soil, the government has seized the opportunity to offensively pursue left-wing revolutionaries and Muslim insurgents throughout the world. This U.S. military action extends and substantiates its position as the international police.

Since the establishment of the Trilateral Commission that initiated the process for the development of one world government, the U.S. has broaden its capacity to impose and enforce its will on oppressed peoples globally. The FBI and CIA has been operating in Europe, Afrika, Asia and Latin America establishing the long arm of U.S. law and order. Its bases of operations have conducted surveillance, investigations to arrest, prosecute or neutralize left-wing revolutionaries or Muslim insurgents. As the U.S. consolidates its political and economic influence throughout the world, it will seek to protect its overall hegemonic imperialist goals. After the Gulf War, and the air (bombing) campaign in Yugoslavia, the U.S. has employed its military might to ensure its foreign policy are achieved.

Because NATO has evolved into a European military entity that Russia is seeking to join, today, the U.S. has positioned itself beyond the mission of NATO. The U.S. now concentrates its military might in opposing Islamic countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan, Philippines, etc.) and those the U.S. deem as rogue nations (North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, etc.). The new military initiatives will be directed to towards Southeast Asia as the secondary target, as it continues to direct the Middle East conflict to preserve its oil investments and zionist interest. As the U.S. expand its imperialist military mission, as seen with committing military troops in Uzbekistan to also protect oil interest in the Caspian Sea, it has sought to redefine itself by targeting what it identify as the terrorist thereat wherever in the world it might exist. Hence, with the employment of conventional warfare combined with counter-insurgency tactical activities, the U.S. has pronounced itself as the military guardian of the world.

Although, the U.S. states its actions are in its self-interest, in terms of what is euphemistically defined as defending the free world, the truth of the matter is this action is a prelude to evolving one world government with the U.S. as its governing authority. Once the Peoples Republic of China becomes a full member of the WTO, and North Korea and Vietnam has been compromised, with Russia becoming an ally of NATO, the U.S. political-military influence in the world will be consolidated. The U.S. geopolitical strategy is not confined to the present crisis in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack and targeting Osama bin Laden as the world’s nemesis. Rather, the U.S. strategy is to preserve its capacity to establish one world government as originally envisioned by the Trilateral Commission.

Nonetheless, there are some serious obstacles to this hegemonic goal, of which the world of fundamentalist Islam has become the principle target. Here, it should be noted that Islam condemns suicide or the mass killings of women, children and non-combatant males. Yet, the U.S., Israel, western Europe, Russia, India and China all view Islam as the enemy. Although, there are over 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, the current alliance of economic interest headed by the U.S., are united to vanquish what they consider the growing menace of fundamentalist Islam. It is with this understanding of U.S. geopolitics one is able to comprehend why the U.S. has redefine its military mission, as opposition to globalization and U.S. imperialism metamorph into a political struggle without borders or territorial imperatives.

The ideological struggle between capitalist free-market economy and Islamic theocratic determinates has exploded into an international conflagration of insurgency with the potential of initiating World War III. The Islamic fundamentalist movements throughout the world has the potential to test the U.S. military, political and economic resolve as the world’s leader and authority of an one world government. With over 1.2 billion adherents, Islam has become a formidable foe to contend with for ideological supremacy in the world’s geopolitics. Even without discussing the religious (moral and ethics) aspects that motivates the geopolitics of Islam in opposition to U.S. imperialist hegemony, the call for Jihad/Holy War against the U.S. presents a serious threat that could precipitate WW-III. Therefore, the U.S. find it necessary to redefine its military mission, develop new language to codify warfare and legitimize its international political and economic purpose. Yet, many of the world’s oppressed peoples’ have already experienced U.S. military counter-insurgency tactics (Ethiopia, Somalia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Congo, etc.), including parts of the Islamic world. No matter how or why the U.S. attempts to persuade Americans that it is entering a new type of warfare, in reality it is more of the same, only extending the military arena to further protect its authority to establish one world government.

However, the U.S. is not the homogeneous country that people are deluded into believing exist. Rather, the U.S. has been held together due its ability to exploit the world’s resources and distribute (unequally) the profits amongst its citizens with its culture of conspicuous consumption. But, the recent attack on the U.S., and its aftermath may very well lead to the untangling and unraveling of the U.S. fabric as has been witnessed with the USSR and Yugoslavia. In understanding this true history of U.S. imperialism, outside and within its borders, essentially tells a story of why U.S. imperialism has been and will continue to be attacked.

Ultimately, the U.S. will eventually find itself at war with itself, as the ideology of a free democratic society will be found to be a big lie. This is especially disconcerting as greater restrictions on civil and human rights are made into law eroding the First and Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As during the Vietnam conflict, internal contradictions of racism, poverty and inequality will be exacerbated as a result of the U.S. military campaign and domestic undermining of civil and human rights. It is expected that strife in America will eventually become violent dissolving any semblance of the illusion of America the Beautiful. In anticipation of U.S. progressive activist opposing this claimed war against terrorism, the federal government will pass new laws to severely restrict protest, demonstrations and dissent. In the ’60s, U.S. progressive activists evolved the slogan “Bring the War Home!” – the question is what will be the slogan this time, now that the war has been brought home?

Free the Land!!

Human rights during wartime

The following is a public service message for Human Rights Day, received by Resistance in Brooklyn from political prisoner Jaan Laaman.

Human Rights During Wartime
By Jaan Laaman, Ohio 7 anti-imperialist political prisoner

The struggle for Human, civil and legal rights is always so important, but particularly now in this time of war and increasing repression. Even as they expand this ridiculous war in Afghanistan, Bush and his government are laying plans to spread imperialist war to other countries. Iraq, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan have all been singled out. Threats have been made against Liberation movements in Columbia, the Philippines and Nepal, as well as against popular leaders and governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Palestine and Libya. With no sense of shame or even irony, Bush threatens war against countries who may have some weapons of mass destruction. This from a country that without question has the largest stockpile of every form of weapon of mass destruction known to modern civilization, and a long historic record of using them against civilian populations around the world!

Domestically, with this so-called Homeland Defense, creepy and fascist sounding as that is, we’ve seen the corporate media totally cave, becoming the new cheerleaders for each new police state law and measure. The recent quickly passed federal anti-terror legislation, allowing seven-day police detention and other repressive measures, is almost certainly unconstitutional. Even more dangerous are the slew of executive branch orders enacted by Bush, Ashcroft and Ridge. Secret military tribunals, over 1100 people from across the country (including citizens and legal residents, not just overseas visitors), snatched up and detained incommunicado in federal custody, countless roadblocks and searches of vehicles, Muslim men across America being profiled and harassed, government agents and soldiers all over the place, etc., etc. Congress has NOT declared a State of War. There is no state of martial law existing anywhere in the U.S. As powerful as the presidency is, Bush and his executive department people have authority only under the Constitution and federal laws. Secret tribunals, disappearing people, warrentless searches, etc., are gross violations of American law. The corporate press may be silent about all this, but the people should not.

It isn’t overblown rhetoric to say that there is a more massive assault on Human and civil rights happening in the U.S. today than anytime since the founding of Human Rights Day over fifty years ago. Under a blizzard of waving flags, frequent “terror” and anthrax alerts to keep the public panicky, and an expanding war, a real police state apparatus is being laid down in the United States today.

Under the rubric of 9/11 and safety for the American people, rights are being stripped away across the board. For example, here in Massachusetts prisons, a new legal mail policy was just established, “due to recent national events.” Previously and based on court rulings, all legal mail was only opened in front of the prisoner, checked for contraband but not read. Now under the new policy, all legal mail is delivered to us already opened and censored, along with our regular mail. Various government agencies are jumping on the bandwagon to enact measures not even remotely related to 9/11.

As often happens, many political prisoners have been singled out and further victimized since September 11. Just hours after the plane attacks, most political prisoners in the federal system were snatched from their work assignments and thrown into extreme segregation. Many were held incommunicado for weeks and only recently have been able to contact their lawyers. People like Sundiata Acoli, Marilyn Buck, Father Phil Berrigan, Carlos Alberto Torres and Richard Williams; people who have been in captivity since the 70’s and 80’s and who don’t share bin Laden’s politics or have any connections with him, were opportunistically locked down. Some, like my comrade Richard Williams, are still in segregation in Lompoc penitentiary.

The need to powerfully proclaim support for Human Rights for all of us, in and out of prisons here in the U.S., as well as Human Rights for Afghani mothers and children and men, along with all the people of this planet is crucial. Probably most critical is the need to support all those people and nations under physical and verbal attack by the U.S. government. I wholeheartedly join with you in this, as well as salute you and your work. The struggle for Human Rights is never easy, but always so necessary.

For Peace and Justice!

12/10/01

Jaan Laaman (W41514)
Box 100
South Walpole, MA 02071