Drones kill Somalians as Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama celebrates

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Tue, 10/18/2011 – 20:53

“The overlapping entanglements have allowed the U.S. military to achieve deep penetration of the armed forces of most African nations.”

Africa, under President Obama, is an expanding theater of war for the United States. There are few points on the African map where the U.S. military does not operate, independently, through proxies, or by agreement with local governments and militaries. AFRICOM has penetrated the armed forces of the continent to a degree no single European power could have ever aspired. Indeed, “the U.S. has so thoroughly infiltrated African armies, many, if not most, would be of no use for national defense against the Americans.”

Scores of Somali civilians have been killed in U.S. drone attacks in the southern region of the country, as Washington tightens its military grip on much of the continent. The current offensive involves thousands of Kenyan troops that are threatening the major Somali city of Kismayo. The American drones are supporting the Kenyan invasion. The drones’ origins are officially secret, but it is known that the U.S. operates drone bases in Ethiopia and Djibouti, which is home to a huge American base.

For all practical purposes, the U.S. has made proxies of Ethiopia and the five member states of the East African Community: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda. The Ugandans and Burundians safeguard the airport that is the lifeline for Somalia’s puppet regime in Mogadishu, where the CIA operates a major facility. In September, the militaries of the East African Community held joint exercises with AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command.

Such exercises with American forces have become commonplace. The U.S. Defense Department is busily training the militaries of Mali, Chad, Niger, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Gabon, Zambia, Uganda, Senegal, Mozambique, Ghana, Malawi, and Mauretania. ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, is considering asking the U.S. navy to help it out with its pirate problem. Most of the militaries of the African Union already communicate with American command-and-control equipment, requiring U.S. advisors. The overlapping entanglements have allowed the U.S. military to achieve deep penetration of the armed forces of most African nations.

“Most of the militaries of the African Union already communicate with American command-and-control equipment.”

In such a web of dependency, few standing African armies are capable of defending themselves – if the aggressor is the United States. But in most cases, the U.S. would likely get its way without a fight, since the officer class of so many African militaries have direct ties with their American counterparts. The U.S. has so thoroughly infiltrated African armies, many, if not most, would be of no use for national defense against the Americans.
The Americans are almost everywhere, but the French never left Africa. Although France and the U.S. were longtime rivals in Africa, waging proxy wars against each other through their African flunkies, their joint actions against Haiti and Libya, and in bringing down the government in the Ivory Coast, signal that the French and Americans are full partners in neocolonialism.

Now President Obama has officially sent 100 U.S. Special Forces troops to Uganda and neighboring countries, (click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/10/18/obama-sends-us-troops-to-uganda/) ostensibly to track down a rebel force. They will also operate in the new nation of South Sudan.

Meanwhile, the NATO attack on Libya threatens to set the whole northern tier of Africa ablaze, a pretext for further U.S. and French operations. American penetration of Africa has reached the point that any nation – such as Eritrea – that does not have a military relationship with the United States is marked for regime change. Instead of the pan-Africanist dream of a United States of Africa, we are seeing an Africa under the military thumb of the United States. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to http://BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com

Black Libyans captured in Sirte

The Black defenders of Sirte and Bani Walid fight like lions because they have no choice

By Glen Ford

Both NATO and their Libyan rebel surrogates express wonder at the fact that loyalist forces continue to fight so fiercely in the contested cities of Sirte and Bani Walid, despite being vastly outnumbered on the ground and unceasingly pummeled from above by the world’s largest air armada. But one look at a picture of Gaddafi loyalist prisoners, captured at a hospital in Sirte, tells the story: they are all Black. The assault on Libya has largely devolved into a race war, and the Black soldiers are fighting for survival against the world’s biggest lynch mob, armed to the teeth by the United States and Europe.

Bulldozer in Tawergha digging mass grave

Where are the people of Tawergha, the mostly Black Libyan city that was wiped from the face of the earth by the rebels? Many of those who were not killed or captured have clearly made their way to Sirte and Bani Walid, to make a last stand against the racist killers that westerners like Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now! call “revolutionaries.” The rebels are brazen – absolutely without shame – in their determination to cleanse Libya of its Black population. They are like Arab Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, backed by a European and American air force, a racist militia whose fighters have vowed to “purge Black skin” and who scrawl the Arabic equivalent of “nigger” on the homes of their vanquished Black countrymen.

Their rationalizations for ethnic cleansing and summary executions of Black prisoners are quite familiar to the American ear, identical to our own practitioners of White Terror. The Tawerghans raped women, the rebels claim, even as international observers report that it is the rebels and the riff-raff that surrounds them who have systematically raped and captured Black girls and women. The Tawerghans, say the rebels, tried to “slaughter all the Misuratans” – and “this is something they have to answer for.”

Many of those who were not killed or captured have clearly made their way to Sirte and Bani Walid, to make a last stand against the racist killers.

Of course, the town of Tawurgha, with only 30,000 mostly Black Libyan citizens, could not possibly have terrorized Misurata, the third biggest city in the country, 25 miles away. But racists always claim to be the victims of crimes in which they, themselves, specialize. So, the Tawurghans – standing in for all Blacks – are labeled rapists, to justify the racist rampages of the Misurata Brigade.

According to a report by none other than the Voice of America, one-third of all prisoners of the rebels are Black. And they appear to be the lucky ones. The captured Tuwarghan men are nowhere to be found, an indication that the rebels don’t give them a chance to surrender, or keep them long after they do. Wounded Blacks that have made their way to hospitals are snatched from their beds, to an unknown fate.

NATO says it will keep bombing until the last resistance to their Libyan rebel surrogates, is crushed. That appears to mean, until the last free Black men in Libya are captured or killed, their families caged at the mercy of racist brutes and sexual marauders. Black civilians are clearly not the kind of people that the Euro-Americans had in mind, when they claimed to be on a mission to protect civilians.

No wonder, then, that the defenders of Sirte and Bani Walid fight like lions, against all odds. They are heroes, but they also have no choice. The racist death squads will have no mercy. Black skin will be purged, Black women raped and then killed. The First Black President of the United States has unleashed a hell on Black Libya. No decent person can ever forgive him.

http://www.mathaba.net/news/libya

Tens of thousands of people take a part in a demonstration in Puerta del Sol square in Madrid on Saturday, part of the global movement against corporate greed. Photograph: Arturo Rodriguez/AP

‘Occupy’ anti-capitalism protests spread around the world

Thousands march in Rome, Sydney and Madrid as Occupy Wall Street protests go global

• Adam Gabbatt in New York, Mark Townsend and Lisa O’Carroll in London
•  guardian.co.uk, Saturday 15 October 2011 16.26 EDT

Protests inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York and the “Indignants” in Spain have spread to cities around the world.

Tens of thousands went on the march in New York, London, Frankfurt, Madrid, Rome, Sydney and Hong Kong as organisers aimed to “initiate global change” against capitalism and austerity measures.

There were extraordinary scenes in New York where at least 10,000 protesters took their message from the outpost of Zuccotti Park into the heart of the city, thronging into Times Square.

Only 36 hours earlier, police were preparing to evict the protest from Zuccotti Park. On Saturday they escorted thousands of marchers all day as they made their way uptown through Manhattan, and looked on as they held a rally at a New York landmark.

Occupy Wall Street protesters take part in a demonstration at Times Square in New York/Photo:Eduardo Munoz /Reuters

Dave Bonan, who was at Occupy Wall Street on the first day of the protest a month ago, said it was “a little surreal” that the protest had spread. “I didn’t expect it to last more than 15 minutes,” he said. “The fact it lasted more than a day inspired people all over the world to capitalise – no pun intended – on our success.”

In Madrid, tens of thousands of people take a part in a demonstration in Puerta del Sol square in Madrid, home of the “Indignants” movement, which has been building through the summer as Spain’s economy faltered. 

 John Domokos and Mustafa Khalili video of London protest at http://gu.com/p/32kxv.

 In London, dusk fell on more than 2,000 protesters assembled in front of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, earlier addressed by the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Protesters who are part of the "Indignants" movement based in Madrid burned police cars and otherwise rose up in defiance

There was civil unrest in Rome, where police turned teargas and water cannon on the crowds. Smoke hung over Rome as a small group broke away from the main demonstration and smashed windows, set cars on fire and assaulted television news crews. Others burned Italian and EU flags. “People of Europe: Rise Up!” read one banner in Rome. Fights broke out and bottles were thrown between demonstrators as some tried to stop the violence.

Occupy solidarity demonstration in Berlin, Germany October 15 AP photo

In Germany, about 4,000 people marched through the streets of Berlin, with banners calling for an end to capitalism. Some scuffled with police as they tried to get near parliamentary buildings. In Frankfurt, continental Europe’s financial capital, some 5,000 people protested in front of the European Central Bank.

In the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, marchers carried pictures of Che Guevara and old communist flags that read “Death to capitalism, freedom to the people”.

Another 500 people gathered at a peaceful rally in Stockholm, holding up red flags and banners that read “We are the 99%” – a reference to the richest 1% of the world’s population who control its assets while billions live in poverty.

“There are those who say the system is broke. It’s not,” trade union activist Bilbo Goransson shouted into a megaphone. “That’s how it was built. It is there to make rich people richer.”

Occupy Manila, Philippines

Asian nations, where the fallout from the banking crisis has been less severe, saw less well attended protests – 100 turned out in the Philippines.

A group of 100 prominent authors including Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman and Pulitzer prize-winning novelists Jennifer Egan and Michael Cunningham signed an online petition declaring their support for “Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy movement around the world”.

Occupy Sydney, Australia

Police in London made seven arrests and contained the crowd near St Paul’s. Assange made a dramatic appearance, bursting through the police lines just after 2.30pm, accompanied by scores of supporters.

Occupy Stockholm, Sweden

To clapping and some booing, he climbed the cathedral steps to condemn “greed” and “corruption”. In particular he attacked the City of London, accusing its financiers of money laundering and tax avoidance. “The banking system in London is the recipient of corrupt money,” he said, adding that WikiLeaks would launch a campaign against financial institutions.

Occupy Lisbon, Portugal

Assange is on bail as he fights extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over claims of rape and sexual molestation made by two women.

Police in New York said they made 70 arrests. These were mostly at two flashpoints: 42 were detained near Times Square when attempts to disperse a crowd led to confusion; 24 Citibank customers who attempted to close their accounts in protest were led away for trespass after they opposed an order by the branch manager for them to leave.

Barbara Quist, 67, was pushed around by police in Times Square. Quist, who used to work in the pharmaceutical industry but described herself as unemployed, said the treatment would not put her off further action. “I’m just another person that’s just been run over by capitalism and greed.”

Ethan McGarry, 18, who had travelled to New York from Boston for the day, said it was “fantastic” how the occupy movement had spread. “People identify with us, then hey will find reasons in their own community for action.”

Lauren Zygmont had travelled from the Occupy Denver protest to New York a week ago ago. “Borders don’t matter at all,” she said. “Were all human beings, were all in this together. This is a global movement.”

World news

• Occupy movement ·
• Occupy Wall Street ·
• Italy ·
• Spain

UK news

• Occupy London

Business

• Financial crisis ·
• Global recession · 

More on this story

• Occupy Wall Street: second senior NYPD officers faces investigation
• Occupy Wall Street: protests spread around the world
• Occupy protests around the world: full list visualised
• Occupy Wall Street assault: lawyer demands action on policeman’s punch
• Occupy Wall Street protesters claim victory in Zuccotti Park standoff
• Occupy London protest: on the steps of St Paul’s cathedral
• Occupy the London Stock Exchange protest
• Occupy movement goes global
• Occupy London

Occupy Athens, Greece in Syntagma Square Oct. 15; the country is in the throes of mass strikes and walk-outs over austerity measures

Rampage, tear gas in Rome

Alessandro Bianchi  /  Reuters

October 15, 2011  

Hundreds of hooded, masked protesters rampaged through Rome in some of the worst violence in the Italian capital for years Saturday, torching cars and breaking windows during a larger peaceful protest against elites blamed for the economic downturn. 

Police repeatedly fired tear gas and water cannon in attempts to disperse them but the clashes with a minority of violent demonstrators stretched into the evening, hours after tens of thousands of people in Rome joined a global “day of rage” against bankers and politicians.  

Smoke rose over many parts of the neighborhood between the Colosseum and St John’s Basilica, forcing many residents and peaceful demonstrators to run into buildings and churches for shelter as militant protesters ran wild. 

After police managed to push the well-organized radicals away from the St. John’s area, they ravaged a major thoroughfare, the Via Merulana — building barricades with garbage cans and setting the netting of the scaffolding of a building on fire. 

Athens: protesters call for world revolution to overthrow the global capitalist system

Discontent is smoldering in Italy over high unemployment, political paralysis and 60 billion euros ($83 billion) of austerity measures that have raised taxes and the cost of health care.

The violence at times resembled urban guerrilla warfare as protesters hurled rocks, bottles and fireworks at police, who responded by repeatedly charging the demonstrators. 

Around 70 people were injured, according to news reports, including one man who tried to stop the protesters from throwing bottles. 

Protesters from France, Spain and Portugal participated in Occupy Paris Oct. 15

Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno blamed the violence on “a few thousand thugs from all over Italy, and possibly from all over Europe, who infiltrated the demonstration.” Some Rome museums were forced to close down and at least one theater canceled a show.

Protesters also set fire to a building, causing the roof to collapse, reports said. The Defense Ministry denied reports it was one of its offices. 

Premier Silvio Berlusconi called the violence a “worrying signal,” and added that the perpetrators “must be found and punished.” 

Occupy Seoul, South Korea

Berlusconi barely survived a confidence vote Friday, with many questioning his leadership. Italy’s debt burden is second only to Greece in the 17-nation eurozone and the country is rapidly becoming a focus of concern in Europe’s debt crisis.

At one point radicals surrounded a police van near St John’s Basilica, pelted it with rock and bottles, and set it on fire. The two occupants managed to escape, television footage showed. 

Occupy London

Some peaceful demonstrators also clashed with the militants and turned some of them over to police.

 A day of worldwid protests inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States began Saturday with the hundreds of people gathering in cities from Japan and South Korea to Australia. 

Organizers had hoped to see non-violent demonstrations in 951 cities in Asia, Europe, South America and Africa in addition to every state in the United States. 

Frankfurt

In continental Europe’s financial capital, some 5,000 people protested in front of the European Central Bank , while in London, around 500 people marched from St. Paul’s cathedral to the nearby stock exchange. 

A website called 15october.net urged the people of the world to “rise up” and “claim their rights and demand a true democracy.” 

“Now it is time for all of us to join in a global non violent protest. The ruling powers work for the benefit of just a few, ignoring the will of the vast majority and the human and environmental price we all have to pay. This intolerable situation must end,” the website says. 

Sydney
About 2,000 people, including representatives of Aboriginal groups, communists and trade unionists, protested outside the central Reserve Bank of Australia. 

“I think people want real democracy,” said Nick Carson, a spokesman for OccupyMelbourne.Org. “They don’t want corporate influence over their politicians. They want their politicians to be accountable.”

 The crowd cheered a speaker who shouted, “We’re sick of corporate greed! Big banks, big corporate power standing over us and taking away our rights!”

OCCUPY TOKYO JAPAN (below)

Occupy Detroit packs plaza in front of Coleman A. Young Municipal Center Oct. 14

Most diverse crowd of protesters seen in years

 By Diane Bukowski 

October 18, 2011 

DETROIT – Occupy Detroit hit the city like a thunderclap Oct. 14 as hundreds of marchers packed the plaza in front of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center chanting “The people united will never be defeated,” and “Bail out Detroit, not the banks.”  

Long-time schools activist and former board member Marie Thornton's sign demands moratorium on city's debt to banks

They brandished signs condemning foreclosures, DTE shut-offs, unemployment, public bank debt, corporate greed, U.S. wars, and the entire capitalist system.  Banners sponsored by Moratorium NOW! demanded that President Barack Obama issue executive orders establishing a national jobs program and banning foreclosures. 

“It’s not one thing, it’s everything!” one protester’s huge cardboard sign read. 

Numerous rank and file Detroiters from the Black community joined young white protesters new to the movement, as well as seniors, filling the sidewalks all the way to Grand Circus Park a mile away. There they began an occupation they said will last as long as possible, joining people in 900 cities across the country who have allied themselves with Occupy Wall Street. 

Marie Butler (l) campaigns against DTE shut-offs, street light elimination

“It’s always about the children,” said Marie Butler, a member of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization. “DTE turns our lights off at home, and they’ve dug up street light poles in Highland Park. We don’t have cars, the buses are late, it gets dark by 4 and 5 p.m. now. The children can be accosted going to school, their parents’ homes can be broken into. DTE could have given Highland Park a waiver with a plan to work out their debt. This is ridiculous.” 

Occupy Detroit wasted no time with plans to target those it says are enemies of the people, marching first on Bank of America Oct. 17 to demand that it declare a moratorium on foreclosures or face a mass demonstration Oct. 21. (See accompanying story.) 

Numerous other targets populate the area around Grand Circus Park, including the DTE headquarters on Bagley, the Detroit Water Board building on Randolph, and various court buildings. U.S. District Judge Sean Cox is poised to sever Detroit’s possession of its primary jewel, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, which serves 400 million customers in southeast Michigan, on Nov. 4. 

Marchers take the street; youths are joined by AFSCME Local 207 (Water Department) officer Mike Mulholland (behind man in blue jacket)

Detroit’s casino workers, who were on the verge of a strike over stalled contract negotiations, planned to rally at Campus Martius Oct. 19 at 5 p.m. Across the country, unions have joined Occupy Wall Street protests in a rejuvenation of the earlier mass occupations in the Midwest that they sponsored earlier this year. 

“This is long overdue,” Wallace Hoskins, a slot machine field service technician who works all over the state. “The people have been sleeping a long time, addicted to Facebook and video games, but it’s finally coming to a head. Detroit is the worst hit city in the country. I want to see a future for everyone. Even though I’m working, if I ignore this like nothing’s happening, then I’m a fool, because it’s going to come to my doorstep too.” 

Occupy the Hood leader Ifejohari Uhuru; instead of police (at right) occupying the hood, they want the people in control.

The occupation notably included many people like Hoskins, not the usual dedicated protesters from many organizations who have held the fort in smaller numbers for many years, but fresh new faces. 

Anne Kabel, a Southfield librarian, campaigned to keep libraries open. 

“Everything on both sides of the aisle is wrong,” she said, referring to the Democrats and Republicans. “They need to listen to the people who elected them.” 

Librarian Anne Kabel

As she was speaking, a contingent of Black youths sporting shirts demanding “Good Jobs Now,” and carrying signs declaring “Fight Racism,” positioned themselves in Grand Circus Park and  began a cadence of chants. 

“When I say good jobs, what do you say?” a leader of the group shouted. “Good jobs NOW,” the youths declared in unison, over and over. Many young people from the Black community were present at the protest, a heartening sign in a city that has been devastated by youth unemployment, government-sanctioned drug trafficking, police brutality, and violence triggered by the overwhelming lack of hope many young people experience. 

What do we want? Jobs! Good Jobs NOW!

Ifejohari Uhuru represented “Occupy the Hood,” a national movement that has sprung from Occupy Wall Street. 

“We began three weeks ago in solidarity with the Wall Street occupation,” she said. “We seek to encourage people of color to get involved. We have over 10,000 supporters now and have been joined by people like Cornel West and [U.S. Congresswoman] Maxine Waters.” 

Tax the Rich MORE

By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), a national organization largely composed of  Black students, has fought school closures, privatization, and state takeovers of Detroit Public Schools for years. They recently won a court victory against Michigan’s anti-affirmative action Proposal 2 and plan to rally at the University of Michigan Nov. 16 to oppose the state of Michigan’s appeal of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision.

Tabrion Joe was there with BAMN

They were present as well to welcome the addition of many other Black youths to the movement. 

Tabrion Joe, who has grown up with BAMN,  said he wished the marchers had taken Woodward as well as the sidewalks and Grand Circus Park. 

At one point, chanting, “Whose streets, our streets,” they began to do so, but were reined in both by Occupy Detroit marshals and Detroit police. Students who occupied Catherine Ferguson Academy in February took Woodward in during a march to Detroit Public Schools headquarters at the Fisher Building in April. 

A contingent of marchers carried signs opposing Proposal C, the city charter revision on Detroit’s ballot this November. 

Part of Vote NO on C contingent

“This represents a corporate takeover of the city of Detroit,” said Dempsey Addison, president of the Association of Professional and Technical Employees, representing city workers. “They are using the charter to take over and retrofit the city for their profits.”

A man who did not give his name but said he was born in India carried a sign decrying the fact that only 18,000 students graduated from medical schools in the U.S. last year. He blamed the American Medical Association, which he said deliberately limits the number of physicians in the country, despite the crying need in cities like Detroit for health care.

Occupy Detroit is online at Occupy Detroit: http://twitter.com/#/OccupyDetMI

Occupy the Hood: http://twitter.com/#OccupyTheHood

 Website: http://occupy.detroit.us  (in solidarity with http://www.occupytogether.org) 

Monetary donations to be sent to: https://www.wepay.com/donate/17751

 Physical donations to be sent to:

Workers World Party

5920 Second Ave.

Detroit, Michigan 48202 

Link for protesters rights from Detroit NLG  (which will be present for legal defense):

http://bit.ly/NLGdet

National Lawyers Guild – Detroit and Michigan Chapter

450 W. Fort St. Detroit, MI 48226

MORATORIUM NOW!

US Major General David Hogg inspects Ugandan troops/ Photo: 1st Lt. Ryan Sutherland

Nobel Peace Prize-President quietly opens 8th US battlefront

By Tony Cartalucci  www.mathaba.net/news/?x=629005

October 16, 2011

While America occupies Iraq and Afghanistan, wages covert war on Pakistan, conducts drone attacks on Yemen and Somalia, bombards Libya, and positions for a wider confrontation with Iran and Syria, Nobel Peace Prize Laurette President Obama has now quietly, without much fanfare, sent 100 US troops to help Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni crush rebels threatening his 25 year dictatorship. 

In what is essentially a “reverse-Libyan-style” intervention, the US is sending troops to crush, not assist rebels rising up against their despotic ruler. Ironically, just as with Libya’s rebels, Uganda’s rebels are also listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department. Instead of the corporate-financier contrived International Criminal Court issuing fictitious warrants for Uganda’s head of state, as was done with Qaddafi in Libya, it is the Ugandan rebel leader, Joseph Kony, who is being targeted. 

Both the Ugandan government (with US assistance) and the rebels, known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), are accused of perpetrating heinous atrocities against their enemies and civilian populations in their decades long conflict. In particular, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has just recently presided over the mass murdering and displacement of 20,000 of his own people on behalf of British corporations who sought to construct tree plantations on their land. US and British military assistance and business deals with the Ugandan government have been a ubiquitous feature throughout Museveni’s perpetual, unending term as president. 

While mutilated victims of the LRA are just now being paraded in front of the public to frame the recent US troop deployment as another “humanitarian intervention,” it is more than likely that geopolitical aspirations, not humanitarian concerns, are driving this agenda. This is especially so considering just how equally abhorrent the Ugandan government’s human rights record is. 

First Natural Fire 10 flights arrive in Uganda – US Army Africa – 091011 from US Army Africa on Vimeo.

The LRA has often been harbored by the Sudanese government (now the South Sudanese government). Sudan has served as a proxy battlefield between the West and China for control over of its vast oil holdings and ultimately as part of a greater battle to control Africa’s resources. Sudan appears to have used the LRA as a sort of armed buffer between them and their neighbors, in particular, Uganda, ruled by an eager servant of the Anglo-American agenda. 

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, daughters, on safari in Africa: hunting for new resources for faltering U.S. economy?

Surely, as Africa, a forsaken continent, is already written off in the minds of many Americans, little concern and few eyebrows will be lifted as their Nobel Peace Prize-wearing president sends yet more troops off to war there, in a global military expansion quickly and alarmingly approaching the scale and scope of Adolf Hitler’s expansion across Europe and Northern Africa during World War II. 

This is difficult to deny when the final tally is done – the United States is conducting either covert or overt military operations in at least 8 nations – Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iran, Libya, Pakistan, and now Uganda – and has 820 military installations in at least 135 countries. As Wall Street and London seek global hegemony, the price Americans pay as this tally grows will only increase. However far flung Uganda may seem, every inch of expansion by the globalists is one inch less for free humanity. 

Identify the corporate-financier interests engineering and driving this agenda, boycott and replace them. 

 

Why U.S. military in Uganda? Soros fingerprints all over it! Obama’s billionaire friend has interests in African country’s oil

Posted on October 15, 2011 at 1:50 PM EST

By Aaron Klein http://kleinonline.wnd.com/2011/10/15/212-4/

TEL AVIV — An influential “crisis management organization” that boasts billionaire George Soros as a member of its executive board recently recommended the U.S. deploy a special advisory military team to Uganda to help with operations and run an intelligence platform.

The president-emeritus of that organization, the International Crisis Group, is the principal author of Responsibility to Protect, the military doctrine used by Obama to justify the U.S.-led NATO campaign in Libya.

Soros’ own Open Society Institute is one of only three nongovernmental funders of the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect, a doctrine that has been cited many times by activists urging intervention in Uganda.

Authors and advisers of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, including a center founded and led by Samantha Power, the National Security Council special adviser to Obama on human rights, also helped to found the International Criminal Court. Continue reading →

Greek strikers march

Protesters walking off the job cause chaos days before key vote

Derek Gatopoulos/ Associated Press

Last Updated: October 18. 2011 1:00AM

Athens, Greece— Strikes halted ferries to the Greek islands Monday and left rotting trash piling up in Athens for the 16th straight day, as unions fought back against more austerity measures at the start of a crucial week for both Greece and the 17-nation eurozone.

The unions orchestrated a barrage of strikes, protests and sit-ins. Tax collectors and customs officers walked off the job, several hundred firefighters and police officers staged a central Athens protest in uniform, and protesting civil servants occupied the finance and labor ministry buildings in the Greek capital.

Greece faces a key vote on the new austerity measures Thursday, and other eurozone countries are rushing to find a comprehensive solution to Europe’s escalating debt crisis in time for a Sunday summit in Brussels by European leaders.

Both the Greek vote and the debt plan are needed so Europe can avoid a loss of confidence in global markets that some fear would plunge the world economy back into a recession.

Parliament’s finance committee on Monday approved the new austerity measures, which include pension cuts and across-the-board tax hikes, as well as pay and staff cuts in the civil service.

“The latest measures are the deathblow for our income, “the civil servants’ union ADEDY said. “The government is destroying its central administration and cutting away the safety net for our citizens, while dramatic cuts in pay are driving workers into poverty and deprivation.”

Public workers on strike; garbage piles up in streeets.

But Prime Minister George Papandreou said he was determined to see the latest reforms through because it would prove to international creditors that Greece was “seeking to make major changes.” Greece has been kept solvent since May 2010 only with international bailout loans.

“This is the most critical week for Europe, and of course for Greece, with decisions that will determine the fate of the eurozone,” he said at an emergency meeting with President Karolos Papoulias. “It will mean we can go to the (debt) negotiations … with our heads held high and with a stronger negotiating position.”

The Socialist government is facing mounting party dissent over a vote in parliament Thursday to pass a new punishing round of tax hikes and pay cuts agreed upon in exchange for international bailout loans.

One Socialist lawmaker, 50-year-old Thomas Robopoulos, resigned his seat in parliament Monday, calling the new round of austerity measures “unfair and anti-labor.”

His resignation does not affect the government’s four-seat majority in parliament as lawmakers there are replaced by party list and not by-elections.

Still, with its slim majority, the government is facing the prospect of an embarrassing defeat over a central part of the new legislation — its plans to strip Greek workers of decades-old labor rights.

The government, meanwhile, was considering using the army to help clear the mounds trash in Athens. Worse labor unrest was ahead: a 48-hour general strike looms for Wednesday and Thursday that will ground flights for two days, cripple public and many private services, even shut down essential services like gas stations and bakeries

Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Abdel al-Jubeir

By Alistair Lyon

LONDON | Wed Oct 12, 2011 2:31pm EDT

(Reuters) – You couldn’t make it up — or could you?

U.S. allegations that an Iranian spy outfit attempted to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington in a convoluted plot involving a U.S. informant posing as a member of a Mexican drug cartel seem bizarre to say the least.

Still, Washington says the drama justifies new international sanctions against Iran and Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief insists that “somebody in Iran” must pay the price.
“The burden of proof and the amount of evidence in the case is overwhelming and clearly shows official Iranian responsibility for this,” Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal said.

Manssor Arbabsiar is shown in this 1996 Nueces County, Texas, Sheriff's Office photograph released to Reuters on October 12, 2011. Arbabsiar, 56, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen and holds an Iranian passport, was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Sept. 29. The United States accused Iran on Tuesday of backing a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, escalating tensions with Tehran and stirring up a hornet's nest in the Gulf, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have long jostled for power. Iran denied the charges and expressed outrage at the accusations. REUTERS/Nueces County Sheriff's Office/Handout

The potential consequences are dire in a tense region where the United States and Israel reserve the right to attack Iran to stop it acquiring a nuclear bomb, a goal Tehran disavows.

For starters, the row could throttle any slim chance of resuming negotiations to settle the nuclear dispute.

Saudi-Iranian acrimony has ratcheted up this year, especially since Saudi troops intervened to help Bahrain’s Sunni rulers crush protests led by the island’s Shi’ite majority and fomented, according to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, by Iran.

From across the Middle East’s Arab-Persian and Sunni-Shi’ite faultlines, Riyadh also accuses Tehran of inciting unrest among minority Shi’ites in its own oil-rich Eastern Province, and has often urged the United States in the past to attack Iran, according to diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks.

The plot suspects are Iranian-American Manssor Arbabsiar, 56, arrested on September 29 in New York, and Gholam Shakuri, said to be a member of Quds Force, the covert, operational arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. He is thought to be in Iran.
U.S. evidence rests mainly on Arbabsiar’s alleged confession that he had acted for men he thought were top Quds officials.

MOTIVE AND MEANS

Yet questions abound over the putative plot, not least the classic ones of motive and means. Many analysts are skeptical.

What could Iran hope to gain from an assassination that would have brought fierce retribution? Why try to recruit a hitman from a Mexican drug cartel instead of using its own? Continue reading →

The video above shows what organizers called the beginning of “Occupy Detroit” outside Cadillac Place, where Gov. Snyder’s Detroit office is, and where protesters have been fighting the cruel cut-offs of 50,000 (and counting) people including children and babies from public assistance every Thursday at noon.

By Diane Bukowski 

October 11, 2011 

Hazen Pingree: Beware the power of the private corporations

DETROIT – People of all ages, sexes and races poured into the City of Hope Church near Grand River and Trumbull Oct. 11 to bring Detroit into the occupation movement that has spread like wildfire across the country, beginning Sept. 17 with Occupy Wall Street. 

The Detroit assemply decided by consensus that the occupation of Detroit would begin Friday, Oct. 14 at 4 p.m. outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center on Woodward at the foot of Jefferson. Participants will then march at 6 p.m. to set up their base in Grand Circus Park.

The park is presided over by a statue of 19^th century Detroit Mayor Hazen Pingree, “the first to warn the people of the power of the private corporations,” according to an inscription on its base.

“This is the first time in years where we have had an opportunity for class unity, the first time we should be able to join together to stop the welfare cut-offs and the Wall Street bail-outs,” Maureen Taylor, president of the Michigan Welfare Rights Association, cried out during the assembly.

Pres. Obama greets South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak at the White House Oct. 12

U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to be in the Detroit area the same day, visiting the Ford Wixom plant with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. South Korean trade unionists have struck and held mass rallies to protest their government’s anti-labor policies. 

Occupy Detroit has now been endorsed by the Metro Detroit AFL-CIO, a hopeful indication that the labor movement will come out in force to support it. Currently, Ford rank-and-file workers are fighting a proposed contract. (See article below.) 

The excitement in the air was palpable. Organizers estimated the turn-out for Occupy Detroit’s first general assembly at 1,000 people, so large they re-directed participants outside to the park/playground area behind the church. 

Abayomi Azikiwe

Long-time Detroit activist Abiyomi Azikiwe opened the rally in the church, noting it was taking place on Columbus Day. 

“This is a day that we pay tribute to the indigenous people of America, and to our ancestors who were brought here in slaveships,” Azikiwe said. “Detroit was the first city to be hit by the economic crisis, and hit the hardest. The rest of the country and the world is now catching up. It is time to reclaim what is ours. We are the 99 percent, the masses who should be in control. We must retake the banks and the multinational corporations and run society on a humane truly democratic level.

Below, Danny Glover addresses Occupy L.A., raising the importance of supporting the hunger strike of 12,000 prisoners in California.

Other speakers acknowledged that members of the oppressed communities should be at the forefront of the occupation, including people of color, women, and  the LGBT communities. Detroit’s population is at least 86 percent Black, and many said the success of the occupation will depend on the inclusion of rank-and-file Detroiters, particularly the youth. 

Maryanne Godboldo, who stood off police in March to defend her daughter from CPS

“They are illegally stealing our children, and we need a committee to address that,” one woman cried out during the assembly. She referred the the thousands of families in Detroit and Michigan who have had their children kidnapped by Child Protective Services using an assembly-line court system absent any judicial oversight. 

This was a concrete example of the need to address the specific problems of the people of Detroit if Occupy Detroit is to succeed. 

The assembly included a large number of young white people, some who came directly from New York as representatives of the Occupy Wall Street movement. They brought with them the tools developed there, including consensus voting, hand signals, and “the people’s mike” (when mechanical mikes don’t work or the police ban bullhorns, the crowd as a whole shouts back what a apeaker either from the stage or from the audience is saying). 

Section of crowd at Oct. 10 assembly/WSWS photo

They also brought copies of the “Occupied Wall Street Journal” put out by the thousands of anti-corporate activists in New York, and a lot of desperately needed energy and enthusiasm. 

Many of the city’s long-time activist groups were also present, hopeful that Occupy Detroit would spark a long-awaited rising up of the people in this long down-trodden, depressed city.   

They included the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition against Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs, and the Socialist Equality Party, which has led protests against DTE shut-offs that cost the lives of dozens of Detroiters, including toddlers, over the last year. 

Travion, Selena and Fantasia Young, killed in a fire caused by 2009 DTE shut-off

A member of that group called on the assembly to be as inclusive as possible, allowing broad debate from all political perspectives. Recently, many leaders of the Democratic Party have sought to piggyback on the Occupy Wall Street movement, he said, and they should not be allowed to co-opt it. 

A consensus vote was taken to select Grand Circus Park as the initial base for the occupation. The Park in located in central downtown, next to Comerica Park and Ford Field, which are expected to be packed with people attending the Tigers and Lions games. 

Grand Circus Park is also close to the financial district full of the banks that have created the worldwide economic meltdown being taken out on the backs of poor and working people. Not to mention that it is only a few blocks from DTE headquarters on Bagley, which recently announced rate increases and cutbacks in assistance for the poor in paying their bills.

 Twelve initial committees were set up, including Outreach, Comfort, Food, Education, Information, Media, Sensitivity and Racial Inclusion, Finance, Direct Action, Name (there is a debate about other names besides Occupy Detroit), Facilitation, Child Care, Medical, Security and Legal. 

For more information, according to a flier distributed Oct. 10:

 Occupy Detroit: http://twitter.com/#/OccupyDetMI

Occupy the Hood: http://twitter.com/#OccupyTheHood

 Website: http://occupy.detroit.us  (in solidarity with http://www.occupytogether.org) 

Monetary donations to be sent to: https://www.wepay.com/donate/17751

 Physical donations to be sent to:

Workers World Party

5920 Second Ave.

Detroit, Michigan 48202 

Link for protesters rights from Detroit NLG  (which will be present for legal defense):

http://bit.ly/NLGdet

National Lawyers Guild – Detroit and Michigan Chapter

450 W. Fort St. Detroit, MI 48226

(313) 963-0843