[LAAMN] Hedges: Pouring Gas on the Afghan Bonfire, UN Confirms 90 Civilians Dead
I watched MSNBC from 4-9pm, yesterday, to experience what many others did, as well as to see and hear Obama. I was impressed and moved, despite serious disagreements, especially in foreign policy, Afghanistan at the top. Over the next days, I'll send you evaluations of his historic, monumental presentation and his candidacy, and maybe add my own. Ed http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080825_hedges_afghanistan_worsening/ Pouring Gas on the Afghanistan Bonfire by: Chris Hedges Truthdig: Monday 25 August 2008 The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan grind forward with their terrible human toll, even as the press and many Americans play who gets thrown off the island with Barack Obama. Coalition forces carried out an airstrike that killed up to 95 Afghan civilians in western Afghanistan on Friday, 50 of them children, President Hamid Karzai said. And the mounting bombing raids and widespread detentions of Afghans are rapidly turning Afghanistan into the mirror image of Iraq. But these very real events, which will have devastating consequences over the next few months and years, are largely ignored by us. We prefer to waste our time on the trivia and gossip that swallow up air time and do nothing to advance our understanding of either the campaign or the wars fought in our name. As the conflict in Afghanistan has intensified, so has the indiscriminate use of airstrikes, including Friday's, which took place in the Azizabad area of Shindand district in Herat province. The airstrike was carried out after Afghan and coalition soldiers were ambushed by insurgents while on a patrol targeting a known Taliban commander in Herat, the U.S. military said. Hundreds of Afghans, shouting anti-U.S. slogans, staged angry street protests on Saturday in Azizabad to protest the killings, and Karzai condemned the airstrike. The United Nations estimates that 255 of the almost 700 civilian deaths in fighting in Afghanistan this year have been caused by Afghan and international troops. The number of civilians killed in fighting between insurgents and security forces in Afghanistan has soared by two-thirds in the first half of this year. Ghulam Azrat, the director of the middle school in Azizabad, said he collected 60 bodies after the bombing. We put the bodies in the main mosque,'' he told the Associated Press by phone, sometimes pausing to collect himself as he wept. Most of these dead bodies were children and women. It took all morning to collect them. Azrat said villagers on Saturday threw stones at Afghan soldiers who arrived and tried to give out food and clothes. He said the soldiers fired into the crowd and wounded eight people, including one child. The people were very angry, he said. They told the soldiers, 'We don't need your food, we don't need your clothes. We want our children. We want our relatives. Can you give [them] to us? You cannot, so go away.' We are in trouble in Afghanistan. Sending more soldiers and Marines to fight the Taliban is only dumping gasoline on the bonfire. The Taliban assaults, funded largely by the expanded opium trade, are increasingly sophisticated and well coordinated. And the Taliban is exacting a rising toll on coalition troops. Soldiers and Marines are now dying at a faster rate in Afghanistan than Iraq. In an Aug. 18 attack, only 30 miles from the capital, Kabul, the French army lost 10 and had 21 wounded. The next day, hundreds of militants, aided by six suicide bombers, attacked one of the largest U.S. bases in the country. A week before that, insurgents killed three foreign aid workers and their Afghan driver, prompting international aid missions to talk about withdrawing from a country where they already have very limited access. Barack Obama, like John McCain, speaks about Afghanistan in words that look as if they were penned by the Bush White House. Obama may call for withdrawing some U.S. troops from Iraq, but he does not want to send them all home. He wants to send them to Afghanistan, or to what he obliquely terms the right battlefield. Obama said he would deploy an additional 10,000 troops to Afghanistan once he took office. The seven-year war in Afghanistan has not gone well. An additional 3,200 Marines were deployed there in January. Karzai's puppet government in Kabul controls little territory outside the capital. And our attempt to buy off tribes with money and even weapons has collapsed, with most tribal groups slipping back into the arms of the Taliban insurgents. Do the cheerleaders for an expanded war in Afghanistan know any history? Have they studied what happened to the Soviets, who lost 15,000 Red Army soldiers between 1979 and 1988, or even the British in the 19th century? Do they remember why we went into Afghanistan? It was, we were told, to hunt down Osama bin Laden, who is now apparently in Pakistan. Has anyone asked what our end goal is in Afghanistan? Is it nation-building? Or is this simply the forever
[LAAMN] FW: WHAT IN THE **** IS GOING ON AT KPFA?
WHAT IN THE IS GOING ON AT KPFA? Date: 8/28/2008 5:49:26 AM Pacific Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 4 THE LIBERATION OF KEMET 28 AUGUST 2008 ‘...The dogs, rabid, foaming with the energy of their brutish ignorance, stride the city streets like robot gunslingers, spreading death as night lamps flash crude reflections from gun butts and police shields...’ Gil Scott-Heron, from his A Poem for Jose Campos Torres on his THE MIND OF GIL SCOTT-HERON album FROM: SF BAYVIEW JR VALREY, MOI POCC KIILU NYASHA Editor's note: The Aug. 20 brutalizing of longtime KPFA programmer NADRA FOSTER by police who were called to KPFA by station and network management has the Black community and all justice seekers seething. How could managers, including two Black women, of the radio station that proudly considers itself the most progressive in Northern California not know the dangers of calling the police on a young Black person? As KPFA programmer Weyland Southon exclaimed on the Block Report that broke the story on Flashpoints the next day: “Situations like this get us killed.” The first priority now is for all charges against Nadra to be dropped and for KPFA to make her whole. The cost of justice isn’t cheap and should inspire some deep soul searching by KPFA and Pacifica management. Rumors that Nadra had been “banned” because a white programmer said she felt “threatened” by this young Black woman who’d been trained at KPFA and has worked there as unpaid staff for over a decade are not unprecedented. Other young Blacks in recent years have been banned and locked out of KPFA merely because white programmers complained they felt threatened by the young people’s presence. Racism runs deep at KPFA. Reparations must include revising KPFA’s program schedule to include a prime time public affairs show covering African American news and views. The one hour a week allocated to the esteemed show Africa Today is nowhere near enough time to cover the far flung African Diaspora. News from the Black community inevitably features police terrorism because it is perpetrated every day in every hood in the U.S. That’s the “War at Home” – hidden in plain sight because powerful media, including KPFA with its 59,000 watts reaching a third of California, refuse to recognize and report on it. The fact that the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper, which does report the news from Black communities across the country, is not currently in print makes coverage of that news by KPFA imperative. KPFA’s signal reaches most of the 100,000 people who used to read the printed Bay View every week – the majority unable to read it on the web because they can’t afford internet access or are locked behind enemy lines. Be sure to attend and speak out at the town hall meeting Sunday, Sept. 7, 3 p.m., at the Black New World, 836 Pine St., West Oakland. Demand as reparations a prime time program on KPFA that’s of, for and by the Black community – a show that covers police terrorism unflinchingly so that listeners and KPFA and Pacifica management know the terrible consequences of calling the police on a young Black person. KPFA, where the memory of the Black Panther Party is revered, must remember that the purpose of the party was to defend the Black community against police terrorism! The journalist best known for his coverage of police terrorism and other life and death Black news is POCC Minister of Information and Bay View Associate Editor JR, who wrote the story that follows and broke the story of the attack on his colleague at KPFA, NADRA FOSTER. He asked that word of another tragedy suffered by the Black community be included in this message to emphasize the unbreakable ties that bind KPFA to the Black community: A member of the Sideshow collective whose program is broadcast on KPFA every last Friday at midnight , AUGUST ‘FEF MITTI’ McCOY, was murdered in Vallejo on Saturday night. His funeral will be Friday, Sept. 5, 11 a.m. , at Wilson Kratzer Mortuary, 455 24th St. in Richmond . Please pay your respects by attending or by sending your condolences to the family via MOI JR at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Meanwhile, watch for the impending re-launch of a redesigned website for the Bay View newspaper at http://www.sfbayview.com . Your support of the Bay View by advertising or contributing (tax deductible if you wish) is badly needed and greatly appreciated, and your stories and comments sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] are always welcome. --- --- --- --- --- --- POLICE TERRORIZE BLACK KPFA PROGRAMMER IN THE STATION Speak out at the town hall meeting Sunday, Sept. 7, 3 p.m., at the Black New World, 836 Pine St., West Oakland by Minister of Information JR On Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, between 1 and 2 p.m., NADRA FOSTER, a young Black woman programmer and single mother, was beaten to the ground by the Berkeley police, arrested, hog-tied and taken to jail, after the management of KPFA radio and the
[LAAMN] Another example of anti-disabled hate talk
THE LAWSON FILE: MICHAEL SAVAGE SAYS AUTISTIC CHILDREN ARE FAKING IT Michael Savage is a piece of shit. Savage said on his radio show autistic children are fakers who just need a little discipline. In 99% of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is, Savage said last week. They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. A number of parents of autistic children took to the streets outside his studio today in protest. It's horrific, said Natalie Smith, the Staten Island representative for Autism United. I mean, who would say something like that? These are children, not animals. I don't know what was going on in that guy's head. Ed Moffitt, 75, proudly showed a picture of his 8-year-old grand- nephew, Bob. Bob can't speak. He never called Savage any names, Moffitt told the New York Daily News. We are dying to hear him say 'Mommy' or 'Daddy.' And (Savage) says that he is just acting out? said the boy's grandfather, retired NYPD officer Bob Moffitt. It hurts me. WOR Radio said they couldn't be held responsible for what Savage says because he is a syndicated host broadcasting out of San Francisco. Bullcrap! WOR knows the hateful venom Savage spews everyday. They don't care. Not as long as they get their piece of the pie. Meanwhile, Savage himself told CBS 2 Monday that he would not apologize. My comments on autism were meant to boldly awaken parents and children to the medical community's attempt to label far too many children or adults as autistic, he said in a phone interview with CBS 2. Of course, that isn't what he said on the air. Media Matters for America on Sunday condemned Savage for his comments. What Michael Savage said was foolish, mean-spirited, and hurtful, said J. Jioni Palmer, spokesman for Media Matters. It's unfortunate he would use his radio program to make fun of and belittle these kids. Instead of ridicule and cheap shots, the children suffering from autism and asthma and their families need support and compassion. The leader of a national coalition of disability, civil rights and social justice organizations called on Talk Radio Network to fire Savage. ADA Watch/NCDR called on Talk Radio Network to fire Michael Savage. Jim Ward, founder and president of ADA Watch and the National Coalition for Disability Rights (NCDR), stated: As America prepares to celebrate the 18th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26th, people with disabilities, parents, family members, friends and advocates across the nation are outraged over Savage's latest attack on people with disabilities. His despicable assault on children with autism -- calling them frauds and brats - - is rightly being condemned as hateful and bigoted. But it is just the latest of Savage's numerous and painful attempts to demean and disenfranchise people with disabilities. He added that Savage has also used his bully-pulpit to declare that: -- High levels of asthma impacting minority children was because the children got extra welfare if they were disabled. (July 2008) -- The handicapped workers at the Phoenix Cafe would drool and put dung in diners food. He made up names for the food on the menu, such as nutburger. (July 2002) -- Members of the disability rights community are the Wheelchair Mafia. -- The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the world's first civil rights law for people with disabilities, should be called the Lawyers' Improvement Act. -- His political opponents are degenerate slime bags with mental disorders and have a virus like leukemia. -- When he was younger, he touched the hand of a midget [Dwarf], it really freaked him out and, since that episode, he doesn't like public places. (June 2004) -- The autism lobby of devastated parents is just a scam to get more money. Representatives from Autism United said they expected between 800 and 2,000 people to rally in front of Savage's San Francisco studio on Wednesday to demand an apology and his termination. They said major advertisers Home Depot and Aflac have pulled support and that several stations across the United States have agreed to stop broadcasting Savage's show (Why in the hell were Home Depot and Aflac sponsoring his shows to begin with and why are stations across America helping to spread his hate). It's not like until now Savage has just been another right wing blather box. But you know what is really disgusting? The Savage Nation, his radio show, reaches at least 8.25 million listeners each week, according to Talkers Magazine, making it one of the most listened-to talk radio shows in the nation, behind only The Rush Limbaugh Show and The Sean Hannity Show. What in the name of God is wrong with people? The following is from Newsday. Parents of autistic kids protest radio show host Advocates for autistic children are protesting
[LAAMN] [Fwd: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - FREE GAZA BOATS ARRIVE IN CYPRUS]
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