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Nothing or Everything Changes After Paris

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There has been much to be dismayed about in the wake of the horrible Paris (and Beirut) attacks, from the carnage itself to the ugly xenophobia it aroused in American politics to the sheer stupidity of the eternal return of the same that is the bipartisan hegemony on foreign policy. The answer for everything is always an eye for an eye until the whole world is blind with little to no intelligent reflection on the blunders that got us here—that might mean a fundamental rethinking of our role in the world rather than yet another knee-jerk response.

Perhaps the best piece I’ve seen on the phenomenon of ISIS came out months before the Paris attacks in The Guardian. In “Iraq Blowback: ISIS Rise Manufactured by Insatiable Oil Addiction,” Nafeez Ahmed gives a nice pocket history of how ISIS, the “Islamist Frankenstein,” is the product of the West’s “co-optation of Gulf states’ jihadists.”

More specifically, Ahmed starts by going back to the Bush administration where senior officials decided, “to pursue hair-brained ambitions to re-engineer the region through the de facto ethno-sectarian” conflict. Thus began years of ill-conceived covert operations amidst the chaos of post-war Iraq, none of them working particularly well.   [Read more…]

Jesse Ramirez: The First Executive Director of the Chicano Federation

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As we sat down to do our interview, Jesse Ramirez opened the conversation saying “I am a product of the Great Depression. We had to put food on the table so we did everything we could to make money”. He had many stories and memories of various events in the period between the 1930s and 1940s.

Jesse was born on April 22, 1926, in Houston, Texas and raised there. During the Depression he and his brother did various things to “put food on the table”. They sold newspapers and shined shoes to earn a few pennies. He sold the Houston Chronicle for three cents. He says the big thrill would be if someone gave you a nickel for the three cent newspaper and told you to keep the change. On Saturday nights they would stay up late preparing the Sunday paper for delivery.   [Read more…]

Rep. Scott Peters Votes with Republican Fear Mongers on Refugees

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Congressman Scott Peters joined with Republicans yesterday to vote yes on hastily drafted legislation creating a micromanaged immigration process essentially barring refugees from Syria and Iraq, including those who served alongside U.S. troops. The bill is H.R. 4038, the so-called “American Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act.

If there’s a bright side to this dark moment in American history, it’s that this vote was largely symbolic. Despite the lopsided number of ayes in the House, this act of political cowardice isn’t likely to make it through the Senate with enough votes to overcome the President’s veto.

The rationale for Democrats who supported this legislation was two-fold; it was moderate in that it didn’t include a religious test for entering the US demanded by right-wing extremists and a fear (that’s the operative word here) they’d be branded as soft on terrorism in the 2016 elections.   [Read more…]

Hillary the Hawk

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Hillary Clinton has abandoned the Democratic Party’s foreign policy for her own. She’s left behind the notion that the Middle Eastern conflict could be contained to that region and joined Republicans in their calls to expand our warfare.

“It cannot be contained; it must be defeated,” she recently said.

On November 19, she told The American Council on Foreign Relations, “(t)he United States has been conducting this fight for more than a year; it’s time to begin a new phase and intensify and broaden our efforts … if we press forward on both sides of the border, in the air, on the ground, and as well as diplomatically, I do believe we can crush ISIS’s enclave of terror.”   [Read more…]

Dr. Ben Carson Brings (Terrorist Recruiting) Campaign to San Diego

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Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson was in San Diego yesterday, ostensibly appearing at campaign fundraisers in La Jolla and Rancho Santa Fe.

The big news, however, continues to be Republican cooperation with the idea of spreading fear and loathing outside the Caliphate, as Carson and other candidates have wasted no time in exploiting the Paris attacks as a way to prove who’s “tougher” on terrorism.

In doing so, they’ve fallen right into ISIS’ trap. They might as well open terrorist recruiting offices in major cities.   [Read more…]

Nuclear Shutdown News – October 2015

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By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline of the nuclear power industry in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those who are working to create a nuclear free future.

This October I returned to the place I come from, southeast Connecticut on Long Island Sound, off the Atlantic Ocean. The region promotes and prides itself as “The Submarine Capital of the World.”

The General Dynamics Electric Boat Company in Groton, CT, has built almost all the nation’s nuclear powered submarines. These include each and every of the Trident subs, which along with nuclear missiles and bombs constitute the US “strategic forces.”

Each Trident carries nuclear missiles, each one consisting of multiple warheads that can be independently targeted.

Thus Tridents are submersible Armageddons.   [Read more…]

Conservatives Cry Wolf About Refugee Terror Threat

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Right-wing politicians in the United States are working overtime to drum up fears about refugees in the wake of last weekend’s terrorism in Paris. Today we’ll look at the coverage of the cowardly lions and the facts which, unsurprisingly, don’t support their case.

Twelve million people have fled their homes in Syria over the past five years. Four million of those displaced have fled the country, coming mostly from what’s left of the once-burgeoning middle class. Half of those leaving the country are children.

At present, the United States is poised to accept 10,000 refugees in the coming year. Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the United States has taken in 1,800 refugees. It is likely some of the refugees well be resettled through San Diego, given the existing infrastructure.
  [Read more…]

Wargasms Won’t Stop More Paris Bombings

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As long as people are dying in Paris, nobody important is dying in Doha or Riyadh… Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

News out of Paris dominated the media over the past few days. Shock and horror turned to anger and disgust.

At least 129 people were killed in a coordinated terrorist attack on Friday evening. At least 350 people were wounded, 99 of them in critical condition.

The terrorist group known as the Islamic State has claimed credit, and law enforcement investigators are inclined to agree these attacks were coordinated out of Syria via Belgium.

Seven people killed themselves in the course of the attacks, an eighth attacker is the subject of a massive manhunt. Scores of arrests have been made as police in France and Belgium have raided homes and picked up some of the usual suspects. Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud –who may have already fled to Syria– has been identified as the leader of the group.

And the French are bombing the sh*t out of Syria.   [Read more…]

Waging Endless War From Vietnam to Syria

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Greg Grandin’s Kissinger, the Bombardier

By Tom Engelhardt / TomDispatch

As October ended, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest announced that the U.S. would be sending “less than 50” boots-on-the-ground Special Operations forces into northern Syria in an “advise-and-assist” program for Kurdish rebels and their (essentially nonexistent) Arab allies.

Only days before, in yet another example of twenty-first-century mission creep, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter had told Congress that the intensity of U.S. air attacks in Syria would rise “with additional U.S. and coalition aircraft and heavier airstrikes.” For this, A-10 and F-15 aircraft were to be deployed to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

It was the sort of military promise from Washington — more of the same — that has grown increasingly familiar in these years and could be summed up by adapting that old DuPont ad line, “better living through chemistry”: a better world through bombing. Unfortunately for such plans, the verdict has long been in: air power as a decisive factor in American war in this century has proven a dismal failure.   [Read more…]

Veterans Day Reflection: An Unexpected Gesture of Appreciation

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The ROK (Republic of Korea) has had in place a standing invitation for veterans of the Korea War to visit Seoul and be guests of the South Korean government for one week. With the exception of one half the airfare and a fee paid to the arranging agency, all expenses, first class hotel accommodations, meals including banquets, tours, ceremonies, gifts and entertainment are courtesy of the Korean government.

I have been able take advantage of the opportunity two times, once in 2003, during which the sixtieth anniversary of the cease fire was being widely celebrated.   [Read more…]

A Cry for Ending the Slaughter in the ‘Drone Papers’ Revelations

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By Marjorie Cohn / Truthdig

A new whistleblower has joined the ranks of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou and other courageous individuals. The unnamed person, who chose to remain anonymous because of the Obama administration’s vigorous prosecution of whistleblowers, is a member of the intelligence community.

In the belief that the American public has the right to know about the “fundamentally” and “morally” flawed U.S. drone program, this source provided The Intercept with a treasure trove of secret military documents and slides that shine a critical light on the country’s killer drone program. These files confirm that the Obama administration’s policy and practice of assassination using armed drones and other methods violate the law.   [Read more…]

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