I saw this great little video on GritTV today. When I visited Kurdistan, I saw that the women were strong and independent. Banaz, the female half of the couple who hosted me there, was a business woman who handled most of the business end of the schools. She received an award as Business Woman of the Year in Suleimaniya during the year before I met her.
This film tells a little of the tragic past and something about their way into the future. In Iran as well, Architecture is a popular career for women.
Some background: In the late 80s, and especially, 1988, Saddam Hussein accelerated what was already an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Kurds to Genocide. The Barzanis were specifically targeted because Mustafa Barzani was a significant leader in the Kurdish struggle for independence. He was, and is, a great hero to most Kurds in Iraq, and some in Iran. His son, Masoud Barzani, is now President of the Kurdistan Region Government of Iraq.
I really feel uncomfortable sometimes, that I have to keep coming back with another Israel story that invites ridicule. Friend or Enemy, I keep trying to take them seriously, but they make it really difficult. They are keeping the world in turmoil through childish temper tantrums, elaborate (and illegal) acts of murder and sabotage, repeated violations of the sovereignty of other countries, friend and foe, and wild (can I say paranoid) stories of sabotage being played out against them, that make so little sense and have such obviously contrived evidence that it is difficult to imagine anyone telling the story with a straight face. Do they believe their own stories? Some of the people do, I imagine. But the people who make the decisions, what are they thinking? And the excuses after the fact. This time it’s come down to a ‘Policy of Ambiguity’.
This time, they have actually been caught by the Dubai police, who are not only diligent and conscientious, but possessed of the best, the most pervasive surveillance equipment money can buy. Read the rest of this entry »
In Afghanistan, the latest surge initiative is the cleaning up of the Taliban controlled town of Marjah. The fighting has been going on for about a week. Early in the week I saw the battle compared to the battle of Fallujah in Iraq. I was a little surprised because I thought we were in it to win ‘hearts and minds’, so totally destroying it while wiping out the adult male population and anyone else who got trapped there with them doesn’t seem like a recipe to win ‘hearts and minds’. An article by David Lindorff on Counterpunch Website entitled “The Battle of Marjah: Why the US has Already Lost” tells us that on the first day, 12 civilians were killed by missiles fired into their home by Marines. More civilian deaths have followed. . . But, I suppose, we can be grateful it’s not another Fallujah.
This weekend, the Washington Post wants us to know that the US forces are already pondering the requisite effort to rebuild. Though the fighting continues in fits and starts as the Taliban have not been entirely eliminated from the area, they are canvasing the town, trying to meet with the townspeople, handing out goodies to children and talking to adults. Read the rest of this entry »
The US continues in it’s attempt to refocus the Yemeni Government on Al Qaeda. Recently, Yemeni forces killed 50 civilians in an air attack on and Al Qaeda Compound. You might think, with the big diversion to Al Qaeda, the beleaguered Houthi rebels would get a break. But, no. The Houthi leadership declared a unilateral cease fire earlier this week, first with the Saudis, and then with the Yemeni Government. In response, the Yemeni army continues to bombard their villages as well as their troops. The Houthis have real complaints with the Yemeni Government which doesn’t show much generosity with any of the people of Yemen, but it has given nothing at all the the Houthis. Because the Houthis belong to a Shia sect, the Iranians had been blamed for helping them, and this was one of the reasons given for Saudi interest. Read the rest of this entry »
January 23, 2010 at 6:19 pm
· Filed under Film, Palestine
Ted Wilcox, a fellow activist in Rochester, sent me an email from a friend, in the UK I think, with some references to materials on Palestine. Of them film, To Shoot an Elephant, is extremely powerful. The original link took me to a version of the film without subtitles, but the one linked to here has subtitles available in several languages, including English. The film, recorded on site during the first couple of weeks of Cast Lead, is a little long and has some seriously disturbing scenes. However, those of us who feel compelled to stand and witness the disaster the Western imperialist powers and Israel are visiting on the rest of the world in the name of civilization and anti-terrorism should watch it.
There is a sequence in the film, introduced as ‘The Hamdan Family’. Something seemed familiar, but I didn’t get it Read the rest of this entry »
January 21, 2010 at 1:53 pm
· Filed under Haiti, Media
Following both US mainstream coverage of the relief efforts in Haiti and coverage through international and independent outlets is a confusing experience. All agree that the US, in command of relief efforts in Haiti, has taken charge of the Port Au Prince airport, put several thousand, has put as many as ten thousand troops on the ground to secure the disaster area before allowing any aid to enter, and placed a air carrier off shore days before the the hospital ship arrived. It is clear that every day help is delayed, thousands of people buried in the rubble die, thousands with injuries die of infections and blood loss, thousands of babies and elderly and weak are at risk due to lack of water and food.
The mainstream press is reporting significant security measures to address serious security concerns. There are concerns that the people will riot, that aid workers will be assaulted, that victims of the quake will be subject to violence from other victims. Read the rest of this entry »
We are currently just about to sell big packages of high tech arms to Egypt, Jordan, UAE and Saudi Arabia . Ha’aretz, says that the Israeli government is not happy about it. We’re only supposed to sell these countries second class weapons, but now we’re giving them F15s and Hellfire missiles. We’ve been protecting Israel through the years, by giving them an edge in the local weapons race. And make no mistake, they are still getting the most assistance and the best of the best, subs capable of carrying nuclear warheads, missile defense shields and more. Not only is Israel a seemingly familiar ally in a very foreign, often hostile world, but they are really good customers. You sell them the weapons, and you know they will use them, probably on a target you approve of. Even so, capitalism is prone to prostitution. It’s the way of the world
Israel might well be concerned about the sale of these weapons to Egypt, recipient of the second largest amount of US aid, because Mubarek is old and his son is not popular. Who will control those weapons when he’s gone? Read the rest of this entry »
I flip on Democracy Now! There are some bodies strewn among piles of rubble and people running around, people sitting in the rubble in shock. I think, “Gaza?” No. It’s Haiti. That’s right the people are black. Or are they? I used to work with a Haitian Manager. JC was rather gruff, but very direct . . . and generally reasonable. He was well educated, well dressed, and spoke with a French accent. We had an international crew in those days, and I didn’t think of him as a ‘black’ man. He was ‘Haitian’. I worked with another Haitian a few years later. He was a engineer, and I didn’t know him well, but I remember one day we stood in front of our cubes, laughing and ducking as a bird that had somehow entered the recycled warehouse where we worked, swooped one way and soaring the other, first diving and then wheeling high above our heads.
So today I am watching the Haitian bodies being removed from the rubble, the men purposefully digging, big eyed children looking on, people sitting in the ruins of their lives in despair. Read the rest of this entry »
When I say that we, the U.S., should be talking to Iran and criticizing the recent human rights violations by the somewhat embattled government, I don’t mean that the US, or the West in general, should support the opposition directly. When we support the opposition, we hurt them. On the one hand, our support undermines their credibility; on the other, they don’t need us. This is their fight. As I said in my previous post, most of us aren’t even clear on what their goal is. When we call the government on their brutal tactics and violations of human rights since the election, we are undermining the credibility of the government. Iran has consistently pleaded their alignment with international law. Read the rest of this entry »
The New York Times ran a front page article a week ago with the headline “Iran Shielding Its Nuclear Efforts in Underground Tunnels“, and accompanied by a bizarre PR photo of Iranian President Ahmadinejad accompanied by other men in suits, in a [highway] tunnel wearing hard-hats. The picture looks like an ad for a Broadway play and the article reads like the storyboard for a political thriller. The article not only presents currently disputed ‘facts’ and without a shred of evidence, it turns the one underground facility about which we were notified [by the Iranian Government], which so far has not been furnished with contents, into a vast underground labyrinth full with a busily humming nuclear weapons program. But, as if that isn’t good enough, the article goes into the past and raises all sorts of long ago debunked [by the IAEA and an NIE reported in late 2007] allegations about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program 2003 and 2004.
Unfortunately, they are not alone. Gareth Porter’s latest piece on IPS, New Revelations Tear Holes in Nuclear Trigger Story, is the result of a detailed examination of evidence presented in a London Times article from mid December that claimed to have a leaked copy of an original document proving that Iran is working on a nuclear trigger mechanism. Read the rest of this entry »