Howard Zinn 4

Vanochtend las ik de Volkskrant-column van onze nationale ironicus en piskijker Jan Blokker en moest aan de Amerikaanse historicus Howard Zinn denken die een diep respect heeft voor de stemmen van gewone mensen die vaak zonder het te weten geschiedenis maken door onder andere tegen het onrecht te vechten. Blokker schreef over Femke Halsema, volgens hem 'Haags, of Haarlems, en als ze toevallig in Amsterdam was geboren, zou het de Concertgebouwbuurt zijn geweest. Ze is honderd procent GroenLinks, een lichte neiging tot wenen om maatschappelijke bloemen in de knop gebroken en net als Marijke Vos een vrouw die principieel in van die typische goedgesitueerde tweedehands mevrouwenwinkels haar kleren koopt, omdat ze voor geen goud in de P.C. Hooftstraat wil worden gezien.' Voorop gesteld: ik stem niet op GroenLinks en vind het geen goede partij. Maar wat Blokker doet is het aanvallen van iemands uiterlijk om zo zijn of haar persoonlijke integriteit te beschadigen. Een oude beproefde methode zodra men geen echte argumenten heeft. Op zijn bejaarde kloten wiebelend in zijn herenfauteuil geeft hij zijn vrijblijvende commentaar, het verzuurde calvinistisch getinte 'ik weet het allemaal beter, want ik heb het allemaal al een keer gezien, de mens is tot niets goeds in staat.' Elk idealisme is voor hem verdacht en dus is ieder mens die tracht er iets van te maken verdacht, die moet belachelijk worden gemaakt zodat hij of zij leert te zwijgen. Terwijl Jan Blokker van alle voordelen van het rijke Westen profiteert, moet kennelijk het dagelijkse onrecht in de wereld van hem onzichtbaar blijven. Howard Zinn is denk ik ouder dan Jan Blokker, maar zoveel meer respect heeft hij voor het menselijk streven. Via de website van Zinn kunt u kijken en luisteren naar zijn altijd actuele visie op de Verenigde Staten. 'Audio & Video from January 2005:On January 23, 2005, Howard was interviewed on Bob McChesney's Media Matters radio program. You can listen to a streaming broadcast of the interview or download it as an MP3 file here (scroll to the program date).On January 14, Howard was a guest on C-Span's Washington Journal. You can watch the interview here (you will need to use the site's search function and type in "Zinn" to find the program).And on January 6, Howard was John Stewart's guest on The Daily Show. You can watch it or listen to it here.' Zie: http://howardzinn.org/default/ Zie ook: http://home.planet.nl/~houck006/zinn.html Of luister: http://www.vpro.nl/programma/madiwodo/afleveringen/14609152/

Propaganda 16

Na alle stellige beweringen van onder andere het NOS-Journaal en Trouw blijkt nu dat de waarheid lang niet zo stellig is. Time Magazine bericht: 'On Scene: How Operation Swarmer Fizzled. Not a shot was fired, or a leader nabbed, in a major offensive that failed to live up to its advance billing. Four Black Hawk helicopters landed in a wheat field and dropped off a television crew, three photographers, three print reporters and three Iraqi government officials right into the middle of Operation Swarmer. Iraqi soldiers in newly painted humvees, green and red Iraqi flags stenciled on the tailgates, had just finished searching the farm populated by a half-dozen skinny cows and a woman kneading freshly risen dough and slapping it to the walls of a mud oven. The press, flown in from Baghdad to this agricultural gridiron northeast of Samarra, huddled around the Iraqi officials and U.S. Army commanders who explained that the "largest air assault since 2003" in Iraq using over 50 helicopters to put 1500 Iraqi and U.S. troops on the ground had netted 48 suspected insurgents, 17 of which had already been cleared and released. The area, explained the officials, has long been suspected of being used as a base for insurgents operating in and around Samarra, the city north of Baghdad where the bombing of a sacred shrine recently sparked a wave of sectarian violence. But contrary to what many many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of the war. ("Air Assault" is a military term that refers specifically to transporting troops into an area.) In fact, there were no airstrikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op. What’s more, there were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the U.S. and Iraqi commanders.' Lees verder: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1174448,00.html Of:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031806A.shtml En voor de berichtgeving van het NOS-Journaal en Trouw zie: http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.com/2006/03/philip-freriks-4.html En:
http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.com/2006/03/trouw-propaganda.html Goed geinformeerde bronnen zeggen dat het Irakese verzet vooraf precies weet welke militaire acties de Amerikanen en hun bondgenoten van plan zijn te ondernemen. Het lijkt erop dat ze gelijk hebben.

Vredesmars

Democracy Now bericht: 'Iraq War Resisters Stage 241-Mile Peace March Across US-Mexico Border A group of anti-war protesters are staging a 241-mile march for peace across the Mexico-US border and through California. We speak with one of the march's key organizers, Pablo Paredes. He is an Iraq war resister who refused orders to board a ship in 2004 heading to Iraq. On Sunday, a group of anti-war protesters set off on what will be a 241-mile march for peace across the Mexico-US border and through California. At 6:30 Sunday morning the marchers set off from Tijuana Mexico. They crossed the Mexico-US border later that day, and plan to end the march with a rally in the California city of La Paz. Yesterday we reached one of the march's key organizers, Pablo Paredes. An Iraq war resister, Paredes was a Navy petty officer who refused orders to board a ship in 2004 heading to Iraq. We reached Pablo by cell phone as the marchers were leaving a Pendleton, California recruiting station. I asked him to talk about the march and one of the other organizers, Fernando Suarez Del Solar who lost his son in Iraq in 2003. Amy Goodman: Late yesterday, we reached one of the march's key organizers, Pablo Paredes. He is an Iraq war resister, a Navy petty officer, who refused orders to board a ship in 2004 heading to Iraq. We reached Pablo by phone as the marchers were leaving a Pendleton, California recruiting station. I asked him to talk about the march and one of his fellow organizers, Fernando Suarez Del Solar, who lost his son Jesus in Iraq in 2003. Pablo Paredes: We have just finished at the recruiting station here in the Vista area, where we confronted some recruiters for the second time in this march, because part of the march - one of the many facets of it is going to be Fernando's solemn asking of the recruiters to be more truthful with our youth, as he is the father of a person who died in Iraq and whose son was lied to about the reality of the military by recruiters. So that's one of the many facets of this effort. It's a counter-fraudulent recruitment sort of work, and unfortunately, we've been met with very rude kind of reactions. Fernando was actually laughed at by military recruiters at the Army Recruiting Station. We began at the Public School 44, which is where Fernando's son Jesus first started his school sort of pipeline in Tijuana. And like many immigrants, he ended up coming to the United States looking for a better life, for an education, and like many immigrants, as well, was targeted by recruiters and ended up in the military. So, part of our march seeks to emulate the plight of the immigrant. We're going to go - we started in Tijuana, we crossed the border and tried to destroy it, in a sense, with our message of peace that doesn't have borders, and we go to Camp Pendleton today, which is the end point today, because that's where a lot of immigrants end up. We end up recruited, and we end up being taught how to kill and die in wars, which is not the best use of our beautiful culture, so we want to redirect it. That's why the march will go from Camp Pendleton on to a place called La Paz, which translates to "peace." Very symbolically, we want to travel from war to peace, and beyond that, that's where César Chávez is buried, and he's also one of the legacies of our culture that we want to resurrect, the legacy of nonviolent civil action in the face of such injustices as this war in Iraq.' Lees verder:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/15/158256 Of: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031706T.shtml

Irak 49

Le Monde bericht: 'Ali Dabbagh: "The Iranians Have Infiltrated Everywhere." Sometime advisor to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani - the spiritual leader of 14 million Iraqi Shiites - as well as a Shiite member of the [Iraqi] Parliament's foreign affairs committee, one of the authors of the new Iraqi Constitution, and an academic specialized in the study of religious parties, Ali Dabbagh, who lives in the fortified "Green Zone" in the heart of Baghdad, is very pessimistic about Iraq's future. "We have tried everything the last three years," he declares to Le Monde, "and we are busy massacring one another a little more every day. There is a very serious risk of civil war. The gap between Shiites and Sunnis keeps on growing. Consensus between the three communities that constitute the country is unattainable. The Constitution, which under American pressure was put together too quickly, is full of contradictions and will remain unacceptable for most members of the Sunni minority. Many of them still believe they belong to the majority in this country. The attack against the Golden Mosque in Samara on February 22 will remain our September 11, even worse than if someone had killed Ayatollah Sistani himself." "We can't moderate the Shiite majority any more. We won't get there," he continues. "The American intervention freed us from Saddam Hussein, but it opened the hell beneath our feet. The way the first Iraqi "governments" were put together by the Americans, with quotas by religion and ethnicity, formalized divisions. The two elections and the referendum organized within a year aggravated the situation further each time. You can't make people live together if they don't want to anymore. There is no central government. Every group is pulling in its own direction. If we wish to avoid the worst, we must find another solution fast."' Lees verder in het Frans: http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3218,36-751332,0.html Of in het Engels:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031706H.shtml

Nederland en Afghanistan 49

De Nederlandse kwartiermakers zijn al op pad. De ontvangstcommissie in Uruzgan maakt zich op. Le Monde bericht: 'Mullah Omar Promises Intensification of "Resistance" in Afghanistan. Mullah Omar calls on Afghans to rejoin "the resistance against the Crusade and the Crusaders." In a Thursday, March 16, message attributed to him, the spiritual leader of the Taliban, presently in flight, promised "relentless resistance" to foreign troops deployed in Afghanistan and to the Afghan government: "We will intensify our suicide attacks to the point of making the territory they are on a burning oven," he promises with respect to Western "Crusaders" and their "puppets" in the Afghan government. He assures that "young Afghans are joining Mudjahadeen camps in great numbers to commit suicide-attacks." "The democracy preached by the Americans and the West is a lie. Their propaganda tries to destroy Islamic leaders and elected governments in Iran and in Palestine. In Iraq, the difference between Sunnis and Shiites has been staged and promoted by Westerners," according to him. He also denounces the "inhumane treatment" of prisoners detained by the Americans in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo, as well as the publication of the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed: "The Western infidels want to destroy our culture, our territory and our beliefs," he deems. The communiqué - dictated by a Taliban spokesman over the telephone - is signed, this time, "Mullah Omar, your brother in religion, servant of the Afghan resistance, and leader of the Taliban Movement," while he previously presented himself as "Leader of the Taliban" only. This new, wider designation suggests that the Taliban leader now sees his movement as the Afghan branch of international Islamic resistance against the West. The Taliban leader, driven out of power at the end of 2001 by the invasion of a military coalition under American command, is sought by the United States, which promises a 25 million dollar reward for his capture. Several dozen suicide and bomb attacks have shaken Afghanistan in the last six months, giving the impression of an "Iraqization" of the fight of anti-governmental Afghan rebels, Taliban, and others.' Zie: In het Frans:
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3216,36-751560@51-730971,0.html Of in het Engels:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031706G.shtml

George W. Bush

De Amerikaanse auteur William Rivers Pitt schrijft: 'Deranged, Disconnected, and Dangerous There was an article in the Washington Post ten days ago that was, in no uncertain terms, the most frightening and disturbing report I have seen in months. It wasn't about mass casualties in Iraq, or about a looming civil war there, or about terrorism, or the bursting budget, or spying on Americans. It was about a rug.
"Nothing says power like the Oval Office," begins the article. "The paintings of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The bust of Dwight D. Eisenhower. The desk used by both Roosevelts. And then there's the rug. Don't forget the rug. President Bush never does. For whatever reason, Bush seems fixated on his rug. Virtually all visitors to the Oval Office find him regaling them about how it was chosen and what it represents. Turns out, he always says, the first decision any president makes is what carpet he wants in his office. As a take-charge leader, he then explains, he of course made a command decision - he delegated the decision to Laura Bush, who chose a yellow sunbeam design." The article goes on to describe, in writhing detail, how George W. Bush inserts the Oval Office rug into virtually every conversation he has. If a discussion veers away into matters of import, Bush steers it back to the rug. "He loves his rug," said Nicolle Wallace, the White House communications director, in the Post article. "I've heard him describe it countless times." The article, to be sure, was meant to be lighthearted. It left me, however, in a state of deep disturbance. All he can talk about is his rug? With everything that is going on these days, he wants to focus on the rug. Dead soldiers? Rug. Civil war? Rug. Complete and total failure? Complete and total rug. The man is deranged, disconnected, dangerous. It appears, finally, that a significant portion of the country now sees this clearly. Only 33% of Americans, according to the latest Pew poll, approve of Mr. Bush and the job he is doing.' Lees verder:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031706A.shtml

De Pro Israel Lobby

De pro-Israel lobby is vooral in de Verenigde Staten buitengewoon invloedrijk. Sterker nog: in de praktijk blijkt dat de buitenland politiek van 's werelds machtigste staat en die van de 'joodse natie' nagenoeg identiek zijn. De pro-Israel lobby lijkt het Midden-Oosten beleid van Washington al langere tijd tot op grote hoogte te beinvloeden. Twee Amerikaanse wetenschappers onderzochten de banden tussen die lobby en vooraanstande Amerikaanse politici. John Mearsheimer is the Wendell Harrison Professor of Political Science at Chicago, and the author of The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.Stephen Walt is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. His most recent book is Taming American Power: The Global Response to US Primacy. In de London Review of Books staat een verkorte versie van hun wetenschappelijk onderzoek: 'The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides. Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.' Lees verder:http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html De gehele wetenschappelijke verhandeling kunt u in een pdf van de Harvard Universiteit lezen: 'AbstractThe centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy is its intimate relationship with Israel. Though often justified as reflecting shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, the U.S. commitment to Israel is due primarily to the activities of the “Israel Lobby.” This paper describes the various activities that pro-Israel groups have undertaken in order to shift U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.' Lees verder: http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/$File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf Of: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=891198 Hier zijn enkele websites van de pro-Israel lobby: http://www.rjchq.org/ En: http://www.aipac.org/ En: http://www.c4israel.org/

In Nederland zijn er behalve de pro-Israel politici, onder wie Kamervoorzitter Frans Weisglas, en het CIDI, benevens enkele journalisten en een aanzienlijk deel van de Nederlandse correspondenten in Israel, ook nog de aan de EO gelieerde Christenen voor Israel. Op hun website vindt u teksten als deze: 'Alijah. Dank voor de terugkeer van 2.751 Joden in juli j.l. , met name uit Frankrijk, Noord-Amerika en Ethiopië, dat zijn er gemiddeld 91 per dag. Dit is echt bemoedigend. God schrijft de geschiedenis maar verwacht van ons dat we erbij betrokken blijven door ervoor te bidden. Bid en dank voor ‘Breng de Joden Thuis’ en de samenwerking met het Ebenezer Emergency Fund en de samenwerking met het Joods Agentschap. Rabbijn R. Evers zei tijdens een interview: “Joden zijn de eeuwen door niet gehaat omdat ze slechter of beter waren dan anderen, maar omdat ze ‘anders’ waren”. Hij wees er op dat God mensen heeft geschapen die sterk van elkaar verschillen. “In een wereld waar geen plaats is voor Joden, is geen plaats voor verschillen.” “En Hij, de God des vredes, heilige u geheel en al, en geheel uw geest, ziel en lichaam moge bij de komst van onze Here Jezus Christus blijken in alle delen onberispelijk bewaard te zijn. Die u roept, is gertrouw; Hij zal het ook doen.”1 Thessalonicenzen 5:22-23. De Here zegene u uit Sion! Pieter BénardCoördinator gebedswerk Christenen voor Israël.' Zie: http://christenenvoorisrael.nl/gebedsbrief/gebedsbrief-september/oktober.html