Peace and Justice Post

By Immanuel Wallerstein, ZNet, March 01, 2011

Fifty-one years ago, on Feb. 3, 1960, the then Prime Minister of Great Britain, Harold Macmillan, a Conservative, addressed the South African parliament, governed by the party that had constructed apartheid as its basis of government. He made what has come to be called the “wind of change” speech. It is worth recalling his words:

“The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, the growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a political fact, and our national policies must take account of it.”

South Africa’s Prime Minister, Hendrik Verwoerd, did not appreciate the talk and rejected its premises and its advice. The year 1960 has come to be called the Year of Africa, because 16 colonies become independent states that year. Macmillan’s speech was in fact really addressing the issue of those states in the southern half of the continent that had significant groups of White settlers (and often great mineral resources), who resisted the very idea of universal suffrage in which Black Africans would constitute the overwhelming majority of the voters.

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By Barry Grey, wsws.org, 1 March 2011

The New York Times on Sunday published a column by its public editor, Arthur S. Brisbane, defending the newspaper’s decision to withhold, at the request of the Obama administration, the fact that CIA killer Raymond Davis is an employee of the US spy agency.

Whatever Brisbane’s intentions, the column is a self-indictment, exposing the liberal newspaper of record’s lack of any sense of democratic responsibility or fidelity to basic journalistic principles and its role as a quasi-state propaganda organ.

On January 27 Davis, a former US Special Forces solider and Xe Services (previously called Blackwater) mercenary, shot and killed two Pakistani youth in broad daylight while driving through a crowded market in Lahore. Other CIA operatives who raced to the scene in their vehicle to prevent Pakistani officials from arresting Davis struck a third man and fled, leaving their victim to die in the street.

The following day, Pakistani authorities arrested Davis and charged him with murder and carrying an unlicensed gun. The US government demanded, and continues to demand, Davis’ release to American officials on the grounds that he is an official with the US embassy in Islamabad and enjoys diplomatic immunity. The Obama administration denied charges by Pakistani officials that Davis is a CIA operative.

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Let’s be clear: Governor Scott Walker’s proposed cuts are not about balancing the state budget. It’s a power play aimed at cutting the heart out of what remains of the once vibrant labor movement. A war waged against unionized workers ultimately harms all workers, and the overt strategy to squelch collective bargaining exposes the deep resentment that monied interests hold towards worker rights everywhere.

The public sector unions in Wisconsin have already agreed to make sacrifices, including significant wage cuts and increased contributions to the pension fund. But these economic concessions are not enough for Governor Walker. That’s because his true goal is to permanently cripple the unions by defunding their organizational base and stripping away their right to collective bargaining.

Sadly, Wisconsin is just one of many front lines in this fight. In the wake of the November elections, anti-union measures are on the move in Ohio, Indiana, and elsewhere.

To understand the true significance of this assault on unions, one must remember that unions do far more than negotiate benefits for its own workers. Unions have fought to strengthen public policies that benefit all Americans, both unionized and non-unionized. We have unions to thank for the weekend and the 40-hour workweek. More recently, unions fought to strengthen minimum wage laws, worker safety protections, and public safety nets. And unions, much to the dismay of corporate power brokers, help provide a powerful mechanism for voter turnout that keeps our democracy strong.

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By Chris Hedges, Truthdig, Feb 28, 2011

I have watched mothers and fathers keening in grief over the frail corpses of their children in hospitals in Gaza and rural villages in El Salvador, Bosnia and Kosovo. The faces of these dead children, their bodies ripped apart by iron fragments or bullets tumbling end over end through their small, delicate frames, appear to me almost daily like faint and sadly familiar ghosts. The frailty and innocence of my own children make these images difficult to bear.

A child a day dies in war-related violence in Afghanistan. Children die in roadside explosions. They die in airstrikes. They die after militants lure them to carry suicide bombs, usually without their knowledge. They die in firefights. They are executed by the Taliban after being accused, sometimes correctly, of spying for the Afghan National Army. They are tiny pawns in a futile and endless war. They are robbed of their childhood. They live in fear and surrounded by the terror of indiscriminate violence. The United Nations, whose most recent report on children in Afghanistan covered a two-year period from Sept. 1, 2008, to Aug. 30, 2010, estimates that in the first half of last year at least 176 children were killed and 389 more wounded. But the real number is probably much, much higher. There are big parts of the country where research can no longer be carried out.

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Royals ‘known for the stories of their fabulous wealth — and tendency to squander it’

Simon Robinson, Information Clearing House,

February 28, 2011 “Reuters” — LONDON (Reuters). When Saudi King Abdullah arrived home last week, he came bearing gifts: handouts worth $37 billion, apparently intended to placate Saudis of modest means and insulate the world’s biggest oil exporter from the wave of protest sweeping the Arab world.

But some of the biggest handouts over the past two decades have gone to his own extended family, according to unpublished American diplomatic cables dating back to 1996.

The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and reviewed by Reuters, provide remarkable insight into how much the vast royal welfare program has cost the country — not just financially but in terms of undermining social cohesion.

Besides the huge monthly stipends that every Saudi royal receives, the cables detail various money-making schemes some royals have used to finance their lavish lifestyles over the years. Among them: siphoning off money from “off-budget” programs controlled by senior princes, sponsoring expatriate workers who then pay a small monthly fee to their royal patron and, simply, “borrowing from the banks, and not paying them back.”

As long ago as 1996, U.S. officials noted that such unrestrained behavior could fuel a backlash against the Saudi elite. In the assessment of the U.S. embassy in Riyadh in a cable from that year, “of the priority issues the country faces, getting a grip on royal family excesses is at the top.”

A 2007 cable showed that King Abdullah has made changes since taking the throne six years ago, but recent turmoil in the Middle East underlines the deep-seated resentment about economic disparities and corruption in the region.

A Saudi government spokesman contacted by Reuters declined to comment.

The Obama Adminstration’s vociferous claims that CIA spy Raymond Davis is entitled to “diplomatic immunity” may have struck some as odd, but according to reports inside Pakistan, it is business as usual.

Indeed, the Pakistani government reports that hundreds of US citizens have been granted diplomatic immunity under US demands despite having no role in diplomacy, and seemingly just living in upscale neighborhoods in the major cities.

These so-called “Special Americans” are under growing scrutiny, according to media reports, because of concerns that many of them, as with Davis, may have been operating as CIA spies without informing the Pakistani spy agency, which is supposed to work in concert with them.

In the wake of the Davis arrest, a number of these “Special Americans” are also reported to have fled the country, with others having simply suspending all activities to avoid attracting official attention.

Though Davis’ spying is major concern, his actual crime is the murders of two people on the streets of Lahore. A Lahore court is still hearing arguments in this case, which Davis insists amounts to “self-defense” and which US officials insist he is immune from anyhow.

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig, Feb 28, 2011

I have watched mothers and fathers keening in grief over the frail corpses of their children in hospitals in Gaza and rural villages in El Salvador, Bosnia and Kosovo. The faces of these dead children, their bodies ripped apart by iron fragments or bullets tumbling end over end through their small, delicate frames, appear to me almost daily like faint and sadly familiar ghosts. The frailty and innocence of my own children make these images difficult to bear.

A child a day dies in war-related violence in Afghanistan. Children die in roadside explosions. They die in airstrikes. They die after militants lure them to carry suicide bombs, usually without their knowledge. They die in firefights. They are executed by the Taliban after being accused, sometimes correctly, of spying for the Afghan National Army. They are tiny pawns in a futile and endless war. They are robbed of their childhood. They live in fear and surrounded by the terror of indiscriminate violence. The United Nations, whose most recent report on children in Afghanistan covered a two-year period from Sept. 1, 2008, to Aug. 30, 2010, estimates that in the first half of last year at least 176 children were killed and 389 more wounded. But the real number is probably much, much higher. There are big parts of the country where research can no longer be carried out.

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Gary Young, The Guardian, Feb 28, 2011

You can tell a great deal about a nation’s anxieties and aspirations by the discrepancy between reality and popular perception. Polls last year showed that in the US 61% think the country spends too much on foreign aid. This makes sense once you understand that the average American is under the illusion that 25% of the federal budget goes on foreign aid (the real figure is 1%).

Similarly, a Mori poll in Britain in 2002 revealed that more than a third of the country thought there were too many immigrants. Little wonder. The mean estimate was that immigrants comprise 23% of the country; the actual number was about 4%.

Broadly speaking, these inconsistencies do not reflect malice or wilful ignorance but people’s attempts to make sense of the world they experience through the distorting filters of media representation, popular prejudice and national myths. “The way we see things is affected by what we know and what we believe,” wrote John Berger in Ways of Seeing. “The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.”

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by Kevin Ryan, Foreign Policy Journal, Feb 28, 2011

We will soon see the eighth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq.  That anniversary should remind us that the Iraq war has claimed many lives and permanently damaged many more.   It is not clear when this war and occupation, or the war in Afghanistan, will ever end.  What is clear is that the Iraq War was built entirely on lies and that painful fact grows clearer with each passing year.  It is no longer possible for honest people to suggest that the false claims made to start this war were just a string of misunderstandings, which brings to mind an important question.

One of the two original justifications for invading Iraq was that Iraq was linked to al-Qaeda and the attacks of September 11.  Vice President Dick Cheney made such claims on several occasions.  But the truth was that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or 9/11 and he was distrustful of that elusive organization.  It was later reported by the US Senate Intelligence Committee that Hussein denied all requests to provide material or operational support to al-Qaeda, and that Cheney’s claims were all false.[1]

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Los Angeles protest in solidarity with Wisconsin workers, 2/26/2011 (Fight Back! News/Staff)

Los Angeles, CA – Thousands of workers rallied at Los Angeles City Hall, Feb. 26, to show solidarity with the struggle of workers in Wisconsin, who are fighting to keep their right to collective bargaining. The union members proudly wore their union shirts and carried signs reading “This is about freedom.” From AFSCME, SEIU, Teamsters, CWA, IBEW and ILWU, to name a few of the participating unions, workers expressed their anger at Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Walker’s attack on public workers.

A delegation of Los Angeles union workers had just arrived from Wisconsin and told about camping inside the Wisconsin State Capitol building. Mike Garcia, president of SEIU 1877 told the rally, “the bosses are our real enemy,” to loud cheers from the workers of all nationalities.

The militant rally was organized by MoveOn.org, along with the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Jose Calderon, professor of Chicano Studies at Pitzer College, pointed out how Chicano, Latino and Black workers are paid less and how immigrants are exploited by the bosses.

A march of Women for Choice joined the rally to join to protest the attack on unions and workers in Wisconsin. The chants included “We are one! We will win!”