Peace and Justice Post

Sherwood Ross, MWC News, Sep. 1, 2011

Many of the 70,000 “third country national” (TCN) service workers employed in Afghanistan and Iraq “recount having been robbed of wages, injured without compensation, subjected to sexual assault, and held in conditions resembling indentured servitude by their subcontractor bosses,” reports Sarah Stillman in a June 6th article in The New Yorker magazine titled “The Invisible Army.” In fact, the system resembles nothing so much as a twisted form of modern slavery.

“These workers, primarily from South Asia and Africa, often live in barbed-wire compounds on U.S. bases, (and) eat at meagre chow halls…” she reports. “A large number are employed by fly-by-night subcontractors who are financed by the American taxpayer but who often operate outside the law.”

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Sygmunt Bauman says Israel ‘terrified of peace’ and ‘taking advantage of the Holocaust to legitimize unconscionable acts,’ in interview with Polish weekly ‘Politika.’

By Roman Frister , Haaretz, Sep. 1, 2011

Sygmunt Bauman, the Jewish sociologist and one of the greatest philosophers of our time, castigated Israel harshly this week, saying it did not want peace and was afraid of it.

Bauman said Israel was “taking advantage of the Holocaust to legitimize unconscionable acts,” and compared the separation fence to the walls surrounding the Warsaw Ghetto, in which hundreds of thousands of Jews perished in the Holocaust.

	Meta-graffiti of a walled Christmas tree on the separation fence in Bethelehem.
	Photo by: Olivier Fitoussi

In a long interview to the important Polish weekly “Politika,” Bauman said Israel was not interested in peace. “Israeli politicians are terrified of peace, they tremble with fear from the possibility of peace, because without war and without general mobilization they don’t know how to live,” he said.

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Reuters

An American flag flies near the base of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York, September 11, 2001.

(updated bel0w)

The Obama administration has issued formal guidelines identifying the messages government agencies are to communicate as part of the commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attack.  The New York Times obtained a copy of these guidelines and notes one significant omission:

The guidelines say the absence of Al Qaeda playing any significant role in the “Arab Spring” uprisings against longtime autocrats in the Middle East and North Africa should be cited as evidence that Bin Laden’s organization “represents the past,” while peaceful street protesters in Egypt and Tunisia “represent the future.” Left unsaid was that many of the deposed leaders were close American allies and partners in counterterrorism operations.

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Saudi Arabian troops enter Bahrain to crush the democratic uprising.

By Samer Araabi, Links

August 23, 2011 — RightWeb — At the end of February 2011, it looked as though the old order was crumbling across the Arab world. Inspired by the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor, massive popular demonstrations ousted Tunisia’s president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak was not long to follow. Similar uprisings began to swell in Algeria, Jordan, Bahrain and Yemen, and the anciens regimes appeared helpless against the rising tide of popular anger and nonviolent resistance.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, actively worked to encourage the forces of counter-revolution throughout the region. From Morocco to Bahrain, Saudi finance, support and intelligence has sought to prevent political turmoil, reinforce existing dynasties and crush nascent democratic movements before they could reach critical mass. This reactionary tide has been supported by some ideologues in Washington, which worries that Arab democratisation would be detrimental to US policy objectives.

Though allowing Saudi Arabia to stifle change and suffocate democratic aspirations within the region may appear to serve US interests in the short term, it will certainly have blowback down the road. At a watershed political moment, the United States has failed to act in accordance with its stated principles, and as a result, popular anger towards Saudi Arabia’s counter-revolutionary campaigns is causing increasing numbers of Arabs to turn against the United States as well. The fallout from Washington’s support for the Arab counter-revolution could haunt US policy for decades to come.

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By Danilo Reyes

The common phrase that the poor suffers the most, in all aspects of life, is not difficult to comprehend. But no one could ever grasp the depth of the poor’s suffering in a life in which he was conditioned to live. It is not like an experimental exposure where a person can immerse himself in a situation in order to get a feel, knowing full well that he can simply step out of it when it becomes too much for him.

The experience I had as to how the disadvantaged suffer from the poor state of the medical practice in the Philippines is limited to me, my family and my relatives. I could articulate the experiences of the others but it would be broad and in an abstract idea as to how they have suffered; and my evidence to those experiences are anecdotal.

Yes. If you are poor, you have no political connection, you are not known to the medical service provider and if the latter thinks you have no education, you are likely to die.

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Reporters Without Borders,  August 30, 2011

As the world marks International Day of the Disappeared today, Reporters Without Borders notes that many countries are still violating international law on this matter, including the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which the UN General Assembly adopted in 2006.

Reporters Without Borders calls for the universal ratification of this convention, which has so far been signed by 91 countries and ratified by 29. Combating enforced disappearance is vital in the struggle against dictatorships and arbitrary rule.

Enforced disappearance includes both secret imprisonment and secret house arrest, in which the families of the victims are denied any information about their fate or where they are being held. It is a form of abduction and sometimes ends in murder.

It is a radical method of oppression in which human rights defenders, opposition activists, free speech activists and independent journalists are removed from society because they are often on the front line of the struggle against authoritarian regimes. As well censoring calls for freedom and justice, dictatorships target those who make the calls.

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End Crackdown on Critical Voices

Human Rights Watch, August 29, 2011

These trumped-up charges and flawed trials show how this government operates to silence critical voices. This is not the way any state – far less a Council of Europe member – should respond to grievances of its own people.

Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director

(New York) – Azerbaijani courts sentenced a human rights defender to three years in prison following a flawed trial on dubious charges of interference with parliamentary elections, Human Rights Watch said today. Separately, six other opposition activists were sentenced to terms of up to three years following unfair trials over their role in anti-government protests.

The Azerbaijani authorities should end its crackdown on critics of the government and release the imprisoned activists, Human Rights Watch said.

“These trumped-up charges and flawed trials show how this government operates to silence critical voices,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This is not the way any state – far less a Council of Europe member – should respond to grievances of its own people.”

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Stephen Lendman, MWC News, Aug. 29, 2011

Washington wages wars multiple ways, including militarily, financially, and politically by supporting wrong over right each time.

For decades, it subverted peace negotiations and Palestine’s bid for statehood. The Obama administration’s now doing it again, besides waging multiple wars and undermining freedom wherever it surfaces, abroad and at home.

On August 26, Haaretz headlined: “US: We will stop aid to Palestinians if UN bid proceeds,” saying:

America “will stop all financial aid to the Palestinian Authority if they” pursue statehood and de jure UN membership In September.

US Consul General Daniel Rubenstein told chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat that Washington will veto a UN Security Council resolution if it’s sought unilaterally within June 1967 borders, despite its illegality under international law and its pledge not to do so against any state seeking UN membership.

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Much of the capitulation of the State to the Anna putsch is to be understood in terms of a recognition of the corporate power behind the  putsch

Badri Raina Delhi, Hard News, Aug. 2011

It should be obvious by now that a majority of Dalit and Muslim organizations are opposed to the sort of denigration of parliament that seems inherent in the Anna putsch as it has developed over the last few days.  Add to that most Other Backward Classes as well whose leaderships may make opportunist statements but who also remain staunchly wedded to parliamentary supremacy against the claims of  “direct democracy” made by Anna’s well-endowed backers.

The social character of this polarization is of the highest significance, and must interest all those for whom Indian democracy is a work-in-progress towards the enhancement of equity and non-discriminatory justice.

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