The Yes Men, Rainforest Action Network, Amazon Watch, Nab Chevron for False PR Campaign "We Agree" with Chevron say the Yes Men, but they are spoofing the oil giant.
Interview with Maria Ramos of the Rainforest Action Network about the trick they played on Chevron, and why. She discusses the critical situation in the Amazon where people are sick and some have died because of oil toxicity that is Chevron's responsibility. The oil giant has tried to evade that responsibility, and Ramos explains what they are doing to try to see to it that they clean up the ongoing oil disaster in the rainforest.
Media reports pay more attention to the spoof than Chevron's multi million dollar ad campaign.
Stephen F. Downs of Project Salam on Repression against Muslims and Peace Activists: Will the 2010 Midterms Lead to an increase in Repression?
Attorney Stephen F. Downs is with Project Salam in Albany, New York. Their new web project is designed to help people understand the magnitude of the problem of U.S. repression against Muslims. They will list hundreds of case histories of Muslims that have been arrested "preemptively" and unfairly, they say.
Attorney Stephen F. Downs joins us for a discussion about the growing climate of anger toward Muslim Americans. Is it the politics of the right? Right wing candidates are getting a bump from the media’s focus on anger itself as a motivator for casting a vote in the November 2nd election. If many of the more hard right wing candidates that are running actually win, could America become even more repressive toward Muslims that it is now? Already peace activists are being seen as next in line for FBI surveillance and so-called "preemptive arrest". Stephen F. Downs argues that we are in a devastating climate where lies and fear are once again the heart of the matter.
As to the media, there are lies of omission and lies of confusion. At a "Town Hall Meeting" on ABC, Christiane Amanpour framed the debate as a question about Holy War, should Americans Fear Muslims? The media encourages us to draw sides in often militant debates where news coverage has been short on the facts. The emotionally charged words of people like Rev. Franklin Graham provokes a response by claiming that Muslim nations "don't allow" the building of churches, a debate ensues. But news outlets don't clarify. In which Muslim nations are Temples or Churches not allowed?
In fact, in Iraq there are many Muslims, yet ancient Mosques and also Churches survived for hundreds of years before they were destroyed after the U.S. invasion and occupation of 2003. We will be following up with a discussion about the impact of Bush/Cheney policy, preemptive war and occupation, that it is war and occupation that provokes violence, not religion. In upcoming programs we will be taking a look at the real causes of violence in countries with Muslim populations. Dr. Robert Pape and others at the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Terrorism. have studied the root cause of terrorism, and it's not being Muslim, not reading the Koran, but living under occupation.
Underwriting for this program was brought to you by JeremyRHammond.com, political analysis from outside the standard framework. Jeremy R. Hammond is founder and editor of ForeignPolicyJournal.com and a recipient of the Project Censored 2010 Award. At jeremyrhammond.com, you will find stories about US policy on Iran, negotiating with the Taliban, Gaza, and more.
Journalist Shannon Young is a headlines producer at FSRN, and reports for PRI, Public Radio International's, The World. She has been providing breaking news reports from Oaxaca, Mexico, during years of change and upheaval there. She joins us to talk about her breaking news stories in context. For example, she expands on her report on a paramilitary siege endangering civilians in San Juan Copala. Peace convoys trying to reach them have been violently attacked and rights workers died. Organizers of a convoy that was being organized to help women and children leave San Juan Copala for their safety were killed a day before the convoy was supposed to leave.
Shannon Young’s stories are best understand in the context of Oaxaca history and in San Juan Copala where there is a three way factional struggle that has long been exacerbated by the politics of poverty versus wealth. We’ll also hear about the isolation of some indigenous groups due to violence or landslides which have left some cut off since August. Then of course there is the ever present threat to journalists.
From Shannon Young's report to FSRN: San Juan Copala, in May of 2010: "The ambush last month that killed a prominent Mexican human rights defender and a Finnish observer near San Juan Copala, Oaxaca may be the first time in Mexican history that paramilitaries have opened fire on an international humanitarian caravan, but it’s not an isolated act of violence. The fiercely independent Triqui nation has been steeped in years of bitter internal fighting which was itself preceded by decades of military occupation. Francisco López Bárcenas, an academic who has written extensively about Triqui history, traces the current crisis back to the 1940s when the government withdrew recognition of San Juan Copala’s status as a county seat municipality – Mexico’s only political district with a distinctly Triqui identity. Governor and UBISORT paramilitaries".
Underwriting for this program was brought to you by JeremyRHammond.com, political analysis from outside the standard framework. Jeremy R. Hammond is founder and editor of ForeignPolicyJournal.com and a recipient of the Project Censored 2010 Award. At jeremyrhammond.com, you will find stories about US policy on Iran, negotiating with the Taliban, Gaza, and more.
Journalist Shannon Young is a headlines producer at FSRN, and reports for PRI, Public Radio International's, The World. She has been providing breaking news reports from Oaxaca, Mexico, during years of change and upheaval there. She joins us to talk about her breaking news stories in context. For example, she expands on her report on a paramilitary siege endangering civilians in San Juan Copala. Peace convoys trying to reach them have been violently attacked and rights workers died. Organizers of a convoy that was being organized to help women and children leave San Juan Copala for their safety were killed a day before the convoy was supposed to leave.
Shannon Young’s stories are best understand in the context of Oaxaca history and in San Juan Copala where there is a three way factional struggle that has long been exacerbated by the politics of poverty versus wealth. We’ll also hear about the isolation of some indigenous groups due to violence or landslides which have left some cut off since August. Then of course there is the ever present threat to journalists.
From Shannon Young's report to FSRN: San Juan Copala, in May of 2010: "The ambush last month that killed a prominent Mexican human rights defender and a Finnish observer near San Juan Copala, Oaxaca may be the first time in Mexican history that paramilitaries have opened fire on an international humanitarian caravan, but it’s not an isolated act of violence. The fiercely independent Triqui nation has been steeped in years of bitter internal fighting which was itself preceded by decades of military occupation. Francisco López Bárcenas, an academic who has written extensively about Triqui history, traces the current crisis back to the 1940s when the government withdrew recognition of San Juan Copala’s status as a county seat municipality – Mexico’s only political district with a distinctly Triqui identity. Governor and UBISORT paramilitaries".
Underwriting for this program was brought to you by JeremyRHammond.com, political analysis from outside the standard framework. Jeremy R. Hammond is founder and editor of ForeignPolicyJournal.com and a recipient of the Project Censored 2010 Award. At jeremyrhammond.com, you will find stories about US policy on Iran, negotiating with the Taliban, Gaza, and more.
Connecticut Groups Oppose FBI Raids on Unions and Peace Groups
Chris Gauvreau of Connecticut United for Peace discusses the uniting of her group with CAIR, the Council of American-Islamic Relations, in CT, http://www.cair-ct.com/ as they join other peace groups in vowing to keep on fighting policies of U.S. intervention, and demanding jobs. They see the latest rounds of FBI arrests and grand jury subpoenas as an outrage.
Peace groups and union leaders in coalition with them have been organizing ahead of a national demonstration in Washington D.C. and we discuss the impact of FBI raids on peace activists who will be facing grand juries in early October. Groups are re declaring their commitment after the FBI has arrested and subpoenaed leaders in Chicago and Minneapolis just one week prior to their national protest.
Talk Nation Radio for September 30, 2010 Peace groups have set up a web site to discuss the crisis here. Chris Gauvreau offers advice to people who have been arrested or who fear they might be arrested in the ongoing FBI sweeps that have affected Quakers, Catholic Workers, the Thomas Merton House, Greenpeace, and groups working for Palestinian rights such as the Arab American Action Network. Their executive director, Hatem Abudayyeh of Chicago, is one of those subjected to an FBI raid and subpoenaed to a grand jury.
Why did FBI agents take these repressive measure now in spite of a Department of Justice review of their actions targeting the very same types of groups? They were criticized by the DOJ for applying 'war on terror' rules when targeting peace activists, yet they are claiming the very same grounds now. What is up with the FBI, and is it incompetence or a carefully planned political attack?
New reports (wire services) indicate that 22 FBI employees were just found to have cheated on tests during an open book exam on agent guidelines.The Office of the Inspector General found the cheating, and Inspector General Glenn Fine said, "We believe the extent of the cheating...was greater than the cases we detailed in this report." The Hartford Courant.
Chris Gauvreau has recently presented arguments against peace groups organizing a “right-left” coalition. We fold these comments into our program as part of a discussion on the wider political implications, and also air clips of what Noam Chomsky said during an interview with Tom Ashbrook of ‘On Point Radio.‘ The show is an NPR daily program produced out of Boston’s WBUR. They titled their interview with Chomsky: Noam Chomskey on U.S. Rage, Ruin. They have lately been taking a look at how anger is affecting voters ahead of the U.S. Congressional races November 2, 2010. Chomsky mentioned that there is a rising fascist trend in the United States. He also discussed the Republican Party as having deteriorated, and said members of the tea party are waiting to be organized.
These are voters who are being misinformed and who can’t vote their self interests until they have the facts. Chomsky is also calling on people who are being critical of the Tea Party voters to see some of what they are saying as a “cry for help”. The Democrats are not reaching out to them he argues.
Chris Gauvreau agrees with Chomsky and she has also said that the leadership on the right could not be helpful in building a national coalition of the majority. So it is a matter of addressing individual voters, not demagogic leaders using slogans, targeting Social Security, and in some cases using xenophobic and even racist language. Listen to her entire speech here along with other views about this topic: http://www.thestruggle.org/MediaP.htm
October 9th CELEBRATION with Poetry, Dance, Music, Visual Arts, Willimantic, Connecticut The line up will include Poetry, Dance, Music and Visual Arts, plus the writer Wally Lamb.
Download an interview with organizers Marge and David Schneider here.
Willimantic Makes it Happen and the Rays of Hope Project have a fun evening in store for you.
It’s a celebration with Poets, Dancers, Musicians, and Visual Artists, featuring writer Wally Lamb at the Capital Theater in Willimantic Connecticut on October 9th 2010. The event features some of the artists featured in Wally Lamb’s latest book, 'I'll Fly Away: Further Testimonies from the Women of York Prison' (2007). Plus world music, Afro, Celtic, Jazz and Funk: the music of Alvin Carter with African Drum, Katherine Blossom on Celtic Harp, Richard McGhee with flute and Peter Onofrio on Digeridoo, and singers Margaux Hayes and gospel singer Tonya Cherry May round out the program. Contact Margedavidpeace@yahoo.com for tickets and information.
There will be an auction run by the Mayor Ernest Eldridge, and you could wind up with 2 tickets to an African safari! The CELEBRATION is a chance to find great items, and you will be helping deserving people who have recovered from hard times to get what they need the most, JOBS.
This is the culminating event for the CooperARTiva fiesta that will be going on all day October 9th on Main Street in Willimantic, where people can workshop on how to trade job skills cooperatively. The doors open at 6:00 PM at the Capital Theater, 896 Main St., Willimantic, the curtain opens at 7:00 PM. Again for further information contact Marge or David Schneider for tickets at margedavidpeace@yahoo.com, or 860-872-6899.
Brad Friedman Troubleshoots our Voting Systems ahead of the November 2, 2010 Congressional Elections
Voting special Number 1 for the 2010 Congressional Election on November 2, 2010
Produced by Dori Smith, Storrs, CT TRT: 29:00 Download at Pacifica's audioport here Or at Radio4all.net and Archive.org
Brad Friedman of Bradblog.com joins us with an overview of the nation's voting systems as we approach the November 2nd, Congressional election. He has used his http://www.bradblog.com web site to document problems with the nations voting machines for years. We talk about the latest round of problems with voting machines and with absentee ballots, voter rolls, numbers that don't add up and more.
Brad Friedman raises questions: Did Tea Party Republican Christine O'Donnell actually win Delaware? He says no one can actually prove that she did. Meanwhile, angry Republicans have filed a Federal Elections Commission complaint against O'Donnell, but they are looking at campaign contributions and public outreach.
-Meg Whitman's attack on former President Bill CLinton about what amounted to a CNN error. "Billionaire Meg Whitman, a former EBay CEO who surpassed the $100 million mark in campaign spending nearly a month prior to the traditional Labor Day kickoff of the Fall campaign, who, by Sept. 16, had donated a record-smashing $119 million of her own funds to her campaign, who refused to meet with former California Democratic Governor Jerry Brown and Republican State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poisner in a pre-primary debate, has knowingly sought to fill the gaping knowledge deficit created by the corporate media's gross neglect of its fourth estate responsibilities with disinformation about Brown, her Democratic opponent". (From Bradblog.com)
How much negative campaigning can voters take and how much can wealthy candidates like Whitman or Republican Linda McMahon spend? Both gained razor sharp corporate skills, but are they running their campaigns more like CEO's than candidates?
As Linda McMahon campaigns for the U.S. Senate being vacated by long time Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, she is promising to spend as much as it takes to win. She has been saturating local TV and radio with negative attack ads about Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and some have questioned her judgment. Still she has pulled to near even with Blumenthal. But how much money are corporations contributing to candidates? They don't have to say.
We also hear about faulty voting machines and systems, it's Diebold again, and we hear about problems in Shelby County in Memphis, Tennessee where ten candidates filed lawsuit and in Alaska where Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski now plans to run as a write-in candidate after losing her GOP primary race to "Tea Party" candidate Joe Miller. Can the voting machine system really function for write in candidates?
This program is produced in Storrs, Connecticut and syndicated nationally with Pacifica Network. Our web site is talknationradio.org and you can write to us at talknationradio@gmail.com. Our theme music is by Fritz Heede.
Underwriting for this program was brought to you by JeremyRHammond.com, political analysis from outside the standard framework. He is founder and editor of ForeignPolicyJournal.com and a recipient of the Project Censored 2010 Award. New at jeremyrhammond.com, “Newly Disclosed Documents Shed More Light on Early Taliban Offers, Pakistan Role”, a review of Taliban proposals to turn over Osama bin Laden and Pakistani efforts to get the U.S. to negotiate with the Taliban on their offers.”
Talk Nation Radio interview with Jeremy R. Hammond Has the US been fomenting unrest in Iran?here
We hear more from Vietnam War veteran and scholar Jerry Lembcke as we continue our conversation about propaganda, myths, and war, from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. Jerry Lembcke is a Professor of sociology at the College of the Holy Cross and served as a chaplain’s assistant during the war. His 2010 book about actress Jane Fonda is titled, 'Hanoi Jane, War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal' published by University of Massachusetts Press, 2010. (See Amazon)
Jane Fonda visited Vietnam in 1972 as one of hundreds of peace activists. They were trying to reach out to the enemy and send a message to both the American people and U.S. forces, that the war was wrong. Like others before her including Pete Seeger and Noam Chomsky, she made an appeal for peace on Radio Hanoi, accusing the Nixon administration of lying to the troops. Her message to U.S. pilots according to Lembcke was, 'If they told you the truth, you wouldn’t fight, you wouldn’t kill'.
Jane Fonda was accused of demoralizing the troops and POW's with the broadcasts. Yet during his research for the book, Jerry Lembcke had trouble finding any U.S. veterans who remembered even hearing the radio dispatch. It was in fact the hard right wing, the John Birch society, even the Klu Klux Klan* that went after Jane Fonda. They began calling her Hanoi Jane and making all sorts of charges that she was a traitor. The FBI had in fact created a file on her, and Jerry Lembcke found an undated page stating that Fonda “denied being a Communist”. A memo from 1972 classifying her though as quote: “not dangerous”. It was the height of the Cold War, but there are many similarities to what is happening in the media today,
During the Vietnam War era many Americans were struggling to cope with the heavy cost of the war and confidence in the Nixon administration was shaky. There were regular news reports showing the devastating consequences of U.S. carpet bombing on Vietnamese civilians in vivid detail.
The Hanoi Jane myth was later folded into Hollywood’s portrayal of soldiers who were psychologically damaged by the war. The crisis in confidence that was really caused by the fact that the U.S. Military lost Saigon, was covered up in a smokescreen of excuses about U.S. peace activists like Fonda who were supposedly causing the loss, and because of her tremendous beauty she was also accused of castrating soldiers. In truth, the soldiers became invisible, replaced by macho mythology that helped to disguise America’s failed policy and hide those responsible for it.
During the Presidency of George W. Bush, and in the wake of 9/11, rhetoric about U.S. war policies was in many ways similar to rhetoric from former President Nixon. Americans were divided into hawks versus doves, and Nixon created a political smokescreen, covering up policy failures by turning U.S. attention to questions of honor. He was talking about a cessation of hostilities, but at the same time escalating U.S. forces.
The Vietnam War was very costly to both the U.S. and Vietnamese forces. There were 58,159 U.S. military casualties, more than 303,000 were seriously wounded. The highest price for the war, however, was paid by the people of Indochina. U.S. bombing and ground war killed most of the 4 million civilians who perished in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
The famous CBS News man, Walter Cronkite said of April 29, 1975, the day U.S. forces were airlifted from Saigon, that it was "a mad dash out the door into the parking lot for the waiting helicopter. And then it was farewell to Vietnam." He also said, 'We should be very cautious. We should be sure that we understand what we're getting into when we dabble in the affairs of other nations. And that is particularly true when dabbling gets to the point of committing military forces'. Walter Cronkite reflecting on U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.
Scholar and Vietnam War veteran Jerry Lembcke joins us to talk about propaganda, myths, and war, from Vietnam to Iraq. Who betrayed U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War era? Who is betraying them today? We discuss the similarities along with imagery in popular culture that now substitutes for real history lessons.
Jerry Lembcke is a professor of sociology at the College of the Holy Cross. His 2010 book about actress Jane Fonda is titled, 'Hanoi Jane, War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal'. His previous book was, 'The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam'. He has been trying to set the record straight about war in general and he is exposing a political tactic of scapegoating peace activists like famed actress Jane Fonda.
Jerry Lembcke has explained that stories about US soldiers being spat upon as they returned home have been wildly exaggerated to the point where people get the impression of peace activists lining up to spit on returning soldiers as they arrived at airports. (Does that sound like the peace activists you know?) In fact, the spitting myths are but one of many devices used by the right to attack the left, and in the process bury the truth about the lives of U.S. soldiers and the Vietnam War.
Jane Fonda is blamed, peace activists are blamed, for U.S. failures, rather than the architects of the Vietnam War war itself. Such rewriting of history adjusts our attention away from grotesque U.S. policy blunders and atrocities.
Produced by Dori Smith, Storrs, CT, syndicated with Pacifica Network TRT: 29:25 Download at Pacifica's Audioport here and at Radio4all.net and Archive.org
Since the 2004 swift boat propaganda campaign against then Presidential candidate John Kerry, U.S. political campaigns have seemed more like a review of Vietnam War era 'patriotism' than current Iraq and Afghan War policies. The glaring absence of real debate about America’s trillion dollar wars has left a void that the political right wing has stepped into just ahead of the 2010 Congressional vote. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, for example, is boosting fear and anger with appearances on US television. He is re-framing political discourse about Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran, into an old-fashioned cold war era battle against Islamic extremism. Blair helped former President George W. Bush, former VP Dick Cheney and former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, sell the Iraq War back in 2003 and 2003. He is now doing the same thing for President Obama, arguing that if he were still in office he would likely attack Iran. Blair refuses to admit that he was wrong about the invasion of Iraq based on the argument that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He didn't. We hear clips of Blair onPBS and ABC.
The cost of war against Iran today would be immeasurable, would likely kill millions according to global security experts. The general public is nevertheless being denied real media debate about the costs. In fact, the American people are not getting the truth about the motivations of those who are designing new rhetoric about old arguments for attacking Iran. An additional cost of such an action could be the reinstatement of a military draft.
We review an era when the draft pulled in lots of different kinds of Americans, many of whom would eventually become peace activists like Jerry Lembcke. Why were their stories folded into a new narrative, who has distorted Vietnam War history, and why?
The most important truth about the cost of the Vietnam War is that 58,159 US Military personnel were killed, over 303,000 were wounded, many suffered in Indochinese POW camps. Four million Indochinese civilians perished during saturation bombing by US forces and in the ground warfare. (From U.S. Military records available online and Wiki, in more detail: here and here for civilian casualty numbers.)
Underwriting for this program was brought to you by JeremyRHammond.com, political analysis from outside the standard framework. He is founder and editor of ForeignPolicyJournal.com and a recipient of the Project Censored 2010 Award. “New at JeremyRHammond.com, the piece, ‘Turning Back From the Point of No Return: Implications of the Threat to Bomb Iran.’ He wrote it to counter the public narrative arguing that an air strike on Iran might be necessary in order to prevent a nuclear holocaust.”
First, this news about an oil and natural gas platform explosion about 100 miles off Louisiana's central coast in the Gulf of Mexico. An oil sheen was detectable for about a mile near the site owned by Mariner energy. We’ve not been able to determine if Mariner has used dispersants in the area. Spokespersons for the company say they will now try to learn what they can from the BP spill. Hopefully, that will include information from marine biologists who have found that dispersants like Corexit could make the environmental damage from the accident worse.
According to an article in Deep Sea News notes that fifty percent of studies found that chemical additives inhibited microbial degradation and the other half of studies didn’t find any significant difference between treatment and control groups. The author, Bik, (part two of the story) reports that the most toxic components of oil, the Polyaromatic Hydrocarbans, are not biodegraded by dispersants. This has been known for at least two years. Marine Biologist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia told us that she feels it was a mistake for BP to use the dispersants in the Gulf.
Journalist Dahr Jamail has been reporting from the Gulf of Mexico and found ample evidence that the Corexit dispersant being sprayed from planes, poured, and distributed via automatic pumps, in the Gulf, is dangerous to both marine life and human beings. (See also the litigation involving BP, Corexit, and Earth Justice here in the July 14, 2010, piece by Brian Smith, 'Earthjustice Sues EPA for Oil Dispersant Safety Information').
Josh Ruebner, U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation discusses the U.S. led talks between Palestinians and Israelis begin with news of an attack by Hamas. We discuss the talks in context with both headline news and the problems inherent to such talks dating back to the Oslo accords.
This week's program is dedicated to Karin Norton who has been battling major illness. Karin has been devoted to peace and justice causes as a professional social worker and activist. She spent more than ten years as the public affairs director for WHUS radio, a Pacifica affiliate at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT. She has served as an advisor to this and other radio programs going back to the 1980s and 90s and she has been a true friend. The Israeli human rights organization B'tselem has condemned an attack by Hamas which killed four Israeli civilians just prior to peace talks in Washington, D.C. B'tselem calling the attack a violation of international law.
The human rights organization has long been critical of the Israeli authority for its tendency to respond to Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians by committing more violations of international law and human rights. On their web site B’tselem points out that Israel has employed an undeclared policy of leniency and compromise toward the perpetrators. They continue to document incidents of settler violence against Palestinians including killings and illegal theft of Palestinian homes. The imbalance in protection of basic human rights will no doubt be a major stumbling block in peace negotiations.
Underwriting for this program was brought to you by JeremyRHammond.com, political analysis from outside the standard framework. He is founder and editor of ForeignPolicyJournal.com and a recipient of the Project Censored 2010 Award. “New at JeremyRHammond.com, the piece, ‘Turning Back From the Point of No Return: Implications of the Threat to Bomb Iran.’ He wrote it to counter the public narrative arguing that an air strike on Iran might be necessary in order to prevent a nuclear holocaust.”
www.donkeysaddle.org For information on how to do a dramatic reading or performance of the play, There is a Field.
Jen Marlowe is an award winning filmmaker, human rights activist, author and playwright. We talk about her new play, 'There is a Field' as she organizes simultaneous readings throughout the month of October. It is to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Israeli Palestinian, Aseel Asleh, a peace activist.
Aseel Asleh was 17-years-old. He was shot to death by Israeli security forces in 2000. Jen Marlowe tells his story, talks about his writing, the words and stories of his family and friends, and explains the historical meaning of his life.
The Israeli security forces ran at Aseel Asleh, charged him, as he stood watching a peaceful demonstration. He ran and they chased him into an olive grove. As his friends and horrified parents watched the Israeli security agents hit him with a rifle butt knocking him to the ground. He fell out of sight and then they all heard the shot… “You can come and get him now” an Israeli said to Asleh’s parents. The evidence points to an execution style shooting of a young man who dreamed of peace, not war, and friendships, not hatreds.
Jen Marlowe explains how she has developed her play to tell the story of one individual who lost his life as a way to help people understand the broader crisis facing Palestinians inside Israel. Jen Marlowe has was a friend to Aseel Asleh and remains close to his family.
Underwriting for this program was brought to you by JeremyRHammond.com, political analysis from outside the standard framework. He is founder and editor of ForeignPolicyJournal.com and a recipient of the Project Censored 2010 Award. “New at JeremyRHammond.com, the piece, ‘Turning Back From the Point of No Return: Implications of the Threat to Bomb Iran.’ He wrote it to counter the public narrative arguing that an air strike on Iran might be necessary in order to prevent a nuclear holocaust.” An Atlantic Magazine article by Goldberg indicates that an Iran attack might be necessary to 'prevent'a nuclear holocaust.
Dahr Jamail, Gulf Seafood Not Safe, Idrees Kamal, Pakistan Aid Effort
Download at Pacifica's Audioport here and at Radio4all.net and Archive.org(Scroll down to transcript, and to see other Talk Nation Radio coverage on chemical dispersant. Dr. Samantha Joye, for example, explained that the use of chemical dispersant presents another environmental problem, as they can be more toxic than the oil itself to some species.)
Produced by, Dori Smith, in Storrs, CT, Syndicated with Pacifica Network TRT: 29:15
In late July both the FDA and NOAA announced that they were giving the go ahead for seafood to be harvested from certain areas in the Gulf of Mexico. They said testing showed the seafood was safe, yet this was very premature according to Journalist Dahr Jamail. We interviewed him to talk about his dramatic revelations in a Truthout.org story August 16, 2010. See: 'Uncovering the Lies that are Sinking the Oil' his story, August 16,2010, “Uncovering The Lies That Are Sinking The Oil”. Dahr Jamail has also been providing reports to Inter Press Service about his investigations into the short and long term impacts of the BP oil disaster.
Plus, helping Pakistanis help themselves: In flood ravaged Pakistan, Idrees Kamal is part of a coalition of Pakistani rights and anti poverty groups working frantically to save lives. You can find CRSD at http://www.crsdpk.org. We were able to reach Idrees Kamal in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. His group, CRSD, Citizen Rights and Sustainable Development, is doing what it can locally to help thousands of flood victims.
Produced by, Dori Smith, in Storrs, CT, Syndicated with Pacifica Network TRT: 29:15
TRANSCRIPT in process Talk Nation Radio for August 19, 2010 Produced by, Dori Smith, in Storrs, CT, Syndicated with Pacifica Network
Background Dahr Jamail's August 16, 2010 story in Truthout.org focuses on the lies being told by BP and U.S. Government officials as they try to downplay and in a way cover up the long term damage from BP's oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. See: 'Uncovering the Lies that are Sinking the Oil'. His August 2, 2010 story in Inter Press Service describes his investigations into the short and long term impacts of the BP oil disaster.
In late July both the FDA and NOAA announced that approved seafood harvests from Gulf waters was safe. In an email to Talk Nation Radio, FDA spokesperson Meghan Scott answered our questions by saying: "We can not give a blanket statement that all seafood from all Gulf waters is safe".
Background on Pakistan In areas where flood waters have receded, Pakistani community leaders like our guest, Idrees Kamal, are doing what they can to help the people of Pakistan. Idrees Kamal studied social development at Peshawar University and has been working with the group, CRSD, (Citizen Rights and Sustainable Development) at hastily put together relief facilities. CRSD is non–profit, non-partisan, and non-sectarian. They work on poverty and labour rights, political rights, health, education, woman’s development, child labor issues, and environmental pollution as well as human development. CRSD founders/Directors have been working with community for last almost 30 years and they have an experience in management in the sectors like poverty alleviation, workers education, labour rights, political rights, health, education, women development, child Labor, environmental pollution , human development and capacity building of the NGOs, CSOs, and CBOs .The BOD have a vast working experience and knowledge to its credit in mass mobilization.
The relief efforts of CRSD are being conducted with help from the Khattak Jirga and the Women Action Forum (Rukhsinda Naz,) who are providing tea. (See also, Ali Shah of Union council Akbarpora for Flood affectees of Mohib Banda). They are providing help at schools and other types of buildings that are usable in: Tarkha, Kurvi, Natal, Banda Seikh Ismial, Banda Malahan, Kurvi, Momin Garai,Amankot. The government has given them some supplies.
Contact Idrees Kamal at crsdpk@gmail.com. He has also been using his Facebook page to call attention to their relatively small but effective sustainable development group turned relief office. They are providing what they can of hot meals plus supplementary food from the UN in addition to sanitation kits and medical care to help people maintain themselves and try to stave off dehydration, hunger related diseases and more serious ones such as Cholera.
Background on journalist Dahr Jamail's investigation into short and long term health and environmental impacts of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Transcript:"They are basically helping set the table so that people are going to be eating extremely contaminated seafood," excerpt of interview with Dahr Jamail, August 19, 2010.
Dori Smith: Dahr Jamail's August 16,2010 story in Truthout.org, “Uncovering The Lies That Are Sinking The Oil,” is a shocking tale of fishermen turned whistle blower over the government's failure to protect them. On August 2nd he wrote a detailed report for Inter Press Service news about the long term impact of massive quantities of the chemical dispersant Corexit used by BP. He now criticizes the government for reporting that Gulf seafood is safe without specific testing for Corexit.
First, we were able to reach Idrees Kamal in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (see map). His group, CRSD, Citizen Rights and Sustainable Development, is doing what it can locally to help thousands of flood victims. Groups like his have been given special permission to help. They have opened relief camps at schools in District Nowshera where waters have receded, but much of Pakistan remains flooded.
(Photo by Kevin Frayer, AP story, Ashraf Khan)
Idrees Kamal: We are working here with the help of philanthropists and some other organizations like (Education First) Women Action Forum, SPO and we are working with Khattack Jirga and the Women Action Forum, (Rukhsinda Naz who are providing tea.) So they are providing us with some uncooked food and then we cook in a school Tarkha at our main camp and then we provide that, distribute that cooked food to eight centers. Three in Tarkha, as well as (a middle girl's school) Natal, where 300 people are living, flood affected are living, and Kurvi, where another 300 people are living and then (unclear) the government middle school, we are also providing there. We are also providing some hygiene kits from the government and have also provided some medical facilities, (serving) until now some 10,000 people.
Dori Smith: In Pakistan Idrees Kamal echoing the sentiments of U.N Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in calling for more help. Ban Ki Moon is calling Pakistan's great flood the worst humanitarian disaster he has ever seen.
Idrees Kamal: In my life I have never seen this type of catastrophic, devastating flood in our country, for it is huge. So I also appeal to the Americans, to the other people who are living in America, please help our nation. I endorse the statement of the U.N. Secretary General and I also want to please help our people so death can be minimized. We are living in very catastrophic, dangerous, unsafe, and in a food crisis, situation. In two to three months the situation will be worsened.
Dori Smith: Idrees Kamal in North-West Pakistan. CRSDPK.ORG is the web site. They are non profit, non partisan and non-sectarian, working in coalition now on an emergency basis to help flood victims. You can write to them at: crsdpk@gmail.com (Phone, 92 91 2247100)
Journalist Dahr Jamail has been covering the Gulf oil spill and touring the region doing an investigation into short and long term health affects. He writes for Inter-Press Service and many other news outlets. Dahr Jamail welcome.
Dahr Jamail: Thanks Dori.
DS: Just tell us what you are seeing as you tour the Gulf of Mexico.
DJ: Well it's really amazing to be down here in the Gulf and seeing everything first hand and seeing the destruction and the devastation and then to have that contrasted with what we see in the media, what we see coming from the Obama administration. I'll spare wasting time on that, we all know that they are trying to spin this that it's over and the oil is gone or mostly recovered and things are getting back to normal down here and its the opposite. Just yesterday for example we went out from Port Boshane which is down near Grand Isles in Southeast Louisiana and we went out to several islands out there to inspect what kind of shape they are in, what kind of shape the marshes are in, and we were in sheen literally all day.
We traveled probably about eighty miles by boat round trip through the day and we were in sheen non stop and we went to a couple of the islands and got out and walked around on them and it was nothing but destruction. Tar balls everywhere, tar mats, some of them probably four feet across all over the shore, crabs crawling on them and such.
We went in and found inland pools that were just completely sodden with literally brown liquid oil floating on top of these pools inside the marsh grasses. The bottom, the mud is just black with oil, and we went in and dug around a bit then and when you stir this stuff up it smells so intense you have to just leave because you get dizzy it just smells just awful. And this is the situation out there and again all of the coastlines of many of these islands are just completely burned up with oil. The oil hits the marsh, it turns it black and brown and it kills it, and it starts eroding promptly. And that's everywhere you see, long rows of white PVC pipe that they use to try to hold in place the absorbent booms with the booms over time slips out of those pipes and then washes up on the marsh and its actually up above the water its not doing anything other than bringing the oil that's already in the absorbent boom into the marsh further. That's what we saw everywhere we went.
Driving back into port we passed over another large sheen of oil but this one had clearly been hit with dispersant and with the kind of telling white foam across the top and we have photos of all of it and (here) and we will be posting them before too long.
DS: Now you have seen aircraft dispensing the dispersant in the waters in the Gulf of Mexico?
DJ: I haven't seen it personally, I mean this is known. There are coast guard photos of it, this is what they have been doing from the very beginning out at the source but even more recently this is what they have been doing inland. And not so much aircraft but actually we've been talking to a lot of fishermen in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana, all saying the same thing. Many of them eye witnesses to basically out of state contractors coming in, going out at night in boats, using a particular type of boat called a Carolina skiff which is basically just a work boat, and going out with tanks, 375 gallon white tanks filled with dispersant, and going out at night and spraying oiled areas that are found by the fishermen who generally populate the Vessels of Opportunity program, (VOO) who are supposedly out there finding the oil and cleaning it up.
Well basically what it looks like is happening is BP is basically using the fishermen in the VOO program to find the oil and then they call in the coordinates and then they are instructed to leave, and physically not allowed to clean it up, this is another part of this program. Then once they get away, either shortly thereafter that or that night these out of state contractors come in, in the Carolina skiffs, and spray the area.
They can spray up to 150 feet from the boat with dispersant, and then the fishermen in the VOO program will come out the next day and go to the same place and they will find the oil sunk, and then what's left is this kind of pasty white foamy residue on the surface. We'll be posting photos of this as well but it is very very clear, what's happened, and then often times when its in shallow water when the oil goes down to the bottom as the day progresses and gets hotter that oil then bubbles back up to the surface.
DS: Why do you think it is that the government fell for this idea of saturating the Gulf of Mexico with this dispersant?
DJ: Well I don't think its really a question of the government falling for it. I think it's a fact of the government being complicit in it. This could not happen without the government helping to make it happen and that's been clear from the very start. BP has taking the lead on this. They have gone from claiming no oil was coming out of the damaged well to a thousand barrels a day, to five thousand, and then ratcheted on up and now we know its somewhere closer to 100,000 a day that were coming out.
All through that process they would make an announcement and it would simply be parroted by the U.S. Government, usually in the form of the sock puppet of Thad Allen. That's just one example.
We've talked about the dispersant and the Corexit, the toxicity of it: The EPA has done its own studies in the past and we wrote about this about a month ago where even according to some EPA's own studies on Corexit, when they did a test of it with shrimp 50% of the shrimp exposed to a very dilute amount of it died immediately and then most of the rest of the shrimp died shortly thereafter.
So the EPA understands this and then since that time we've had several EPA whistle blowers the best known of which being Hugh Kaufman talking about how horribly toxic this stuff is. It's an industrial solvent that's just terrible. I mean the list of how it will impact you is about a page long. (Listen to Kaufman and Dahr Jamail on Democracy Now on this topic here)
So that information is there and yet we have the EPA as an organization, and the rest of the entire government, involved in this situation including NOAA, (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,) OSHA, (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) NIOSH, (National Institute for Occupational Safety) and Health, we could go down a long list. Basically they are just helping BP carry out their plan.
The Coast Guard has repeatedly denied involvement in spraying dispersant, even at one point I saw a Coast Guard fellow saying that no dispersant whatsoever had been sprayed in Florida, despite, I have several eye witnesses who have seen the C-130s come in off the coast of Destin Florida or Valusia Florida and spray it all through the month of July, well past the deadline of July 15th, when they claimed no more was being sprayed. So we have government complicity in this thing all the way through.
I think one of the crown jewels of that complicity would be Obama coming down to the coast and taking his daughter out into the water for a photo op to try to show people that everything's just fine. And if you go down the coast a few dozen miles, or however far it is from Panama City to Destin, you are going to find giant fish kills on the bottom. (See Earth Justice on dead fish, Florida and elsewhere, litigation, food safety)
You are going to find fish kill so intense as of a week ago that they are closing public boat ramps. You are going to find tar balls still washing up to the beach. I just got more pictures right now from a contact over there, dead wildlife, massive amounts of dead fish floating around under sea on the bottom of the area over there. And yet we have Obama who basically acts, putting himself in a position where he is acting like a really good PR flak for BP.
DS: You are listening to Talk Nation Radio, an interview with Journalist Dahr Jamail. I'm Dori Smith. In Late July the FDA and NOAA declared Gulf seafood safe. While most major networks were interviewing happy fishermen glad to be back to work, Dahr Jamail was touring much further into the region to speak with those who said they saw the use of dispersant far beyond what the government had admitted. The government agencies had been giving fisheries the go ahead prior to having a specific test for the dispersant:
NOAA chemist Gina Ylitalo: “Yes, the seafood in the Gulf is safe. It's a safe as we can make this." During the same interview Ylitalo admitted they were still working on a test for the dispersant: "We are developing a chemical test to analyze for the dispersant in the seafood samples". (See U.S. Government info that it is 'safe' here) and (MSNBC report here.
FDA spokesperson Meghan Scott answered our questions via email, saying, "We cannot give a blanket statement that all seafood from all Gulf waters is safe".
We asked Dahr Jamail to comment on the statement of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke after traveling to Louisiana that quote; "We need to let the American people know that the seafood being harvested from the Gulf is safe to eat".
DJ: Well I guess I would like the opportunity to take this individual, and his family, maybe he has kids, to this inland lagoon we found yesterday and they can swim in the oil, and they can swim in the sheen, and the vile odors that are in the off gassing that's happening in there. We saw crabs crawling all through it, they can eat some of those crabs, they can fry them up. You know I guess that would be my response.
It's infuriating to me to see these people. I mean that individual, he and so many other people in the Obama administration like him, are literally criminally complicit. They are basically helping set the table so that people are going to be eating extremely contaminated seafood.
When we are talking about Corexit, it's carcinogenic, it's mutagenic, if you are a pregnant woman and you are exposed to it your fetus will die, period. That's how toxic this stuff is. (Earth Justice report, Patti Goldman, Congress couldn't stop Corexit use.)
It's a neurotoxin. It causes respiratory system depression, just a myriad of things that this does, and they are not even testing for it, and their test for oil is a smell test. They pick up a fish or a crab or a shrimp and if they can't smell something then they call it good. It's part of their campaign to show everybody that everything is OK. We can get back to business as usual, BP can keep drilling out in the Gulf, trying to get people to come back down to the Gulf Coast because the economies are in a shambles because of this. A big part of that is trying to share that the seafood is OK to eat, and that's just this one aspect of this giant PR campaign that BP and the government have been running to try to show people, Oh look everything is great, we can just get back to business as usual, now go back to sleep.
I think that that's part of what this whole seafood situation is, and I think it's probably one of the most insidious parts because it's literally going to be endangering the lives, directly, of untold numbers of people across the United States. (NPR story facilitates PR campaign here).
DS: Dahr Jamail, Can you confirm the use of the Corexit dispersant in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana?
DJ: The dispersant is being used in all four of those states without a doubt. I talked to VOO program fishermen who have been eyewitnesses to dispersant being used either by airplane or by boat or both, in all four states, and I have also spoken with people who have been exposed to them and are suffering with health effects from that in all four states as well. So there is no question that they have been used, sometimes extremely heavily, in all four states.
DS: Why do you think it is that this is going on? Why is the Corexit which you say is a neurotoxin, dangerous to pregnant women, a carcinogen, why is it being used really?
DJ: It is being used to hide the oil, the amount of oil for several reasons. One is that BP will be fined for every barrel, the final estimate that the government decides is the amount that was gushed into the Gulf. Then the amount recovered, they are going to be charged per barrel in liability for that amount and so its all about protecting BP's bottom line, that the less oil that they estimate, the less oil that they 'find,' the less of a fine BP is going to have to pay. It's just that simple.
Also, kind of dovetailing into that is the less visible oil there is, then the less work there is for the VOO program and the fact that BP can get that shut down also minimizing their liability. So we have seen the response workers numbers go from around a maximum of about 45,000 to now it's well below 30,000 and being chopped down by the day.
So I am speaking directly with VOO people who are going out in their boats, who know where the oil is, and are literally being called off and not allowed to go collect it. So that if they can go a few days in an area like what happened in Mississippi recently and say well there is just not a whole lot being found--which is total nonsense because these guys are finding it and then as I said before they are not being allowed to clean it up--instead they are going out and sending private contractors out to sink it with dispersant: That basically means at the end of the day that BP is going to start shutting down these programs in different states as Mississippi has done, and pay out less money for the response effort. At the end of the day that's going to help them with their bottom line. So that's what this whole thing is about.
DS: You also write in your Truthout.org piece that not much money has been paid out?
DJ: No, you know of this so called $20 billion dollar compensation fund, which is a joke of an amount, because when someone loses their entire livelihood or dies early because they have been exposed to dispersant, or, we have had four suicides so far directly related to this disaster and counting, what is that worth? I mean how do you put a price tag on that? You know if someone's entire livelihood, they lived down on the coast, they are a third generation shrimper, their kids are in all of their community is there, and now you have basically wiped that out for an indefinite amount of time. How much is that worth? Is that a million dollars? Is that two million dollars?
To put an overall price tag on this thing I think is also degrading and insulting to people down here. One thing they have tried to do, the Obama administration put Ken Feinberg in charge of this fund. He is being paid by BP. He will not disclose the amount he is being paid by BP, and he is basically acting as this kind of apologist and intermediary between the Obama administration and BP. At the end of the day he is completely complicit in both and particularly with BP. So as a result of that people who are filing claims, so far, most of these people have not seen one dime. I have yet to talk to one person who said, yes they caused us damage, yes they showed up and helped me determine it was this amount; I agreed that was fair amount for me to be compensated, and then they have paid me or started to pay me. I have not met one person in all four states so far down here that can say that.
Mississippi also is part of that PR effort, also Bill Walker was responsible for this as well. They have opened it up, you can go shrimp, there are no bans right now in Mississippi that I am aware of. But the people that go fish, guess what? They are not catching anything. Because like I said before, when the shrimp hit Corexit, the dispersant, they die. Fifty percent of them die upon contact and then most of the rest die shortly thereafter.
We went out in the boat yesterday from South East Louisiana and opened up some of the areas down there for shrimping. We literally, right when we pulled out of the dock, we passed two shrimpers coming in and our captain asked one of them, hey how did you do?
He said, I didn't catch anything, not a thing. He said well how much do you usually catch? And the guy said, a thousand pounds. Shortly after that we passed another guy coming in and he had caught 18 shrimp, 'one-eight', and these are people that usually go out and catch hundreds if not sometimes a thousand pounds on a big day. And they are not catching anything, and we were out in bays that were open and not one shrimper out there because people know, look, I'm not going to go shrimp because I'm probably not going to catch anything and if I do there is basically no market for it. Most folks wouldn't eat anything that comes out of there. It's so toxic and its so bad down here that literally people out of Mississippi are going out and shrimping and they are not catching anything despite the feds opening the water.
I think that's one of the scariest parts of this whole situation. Not only do we just have complete deregulation for the corporations to do what they want, but we have a government that's basically acting as apologists for them and helping them pretend like this thing isn't so bad, and we can open up this area for fishing and people can eat the food that comes out of it, and it couldn't be much more toxic than it is right now.
It's a wasteland in a lot of the areas down here and we've got the pictures to prove it, and the facts. And yet, we have a government that's trying to basically race seafood back out onto the market. That is a really scary situation. It just underscores the fact that you cannot trust this government for anything with this situation down here in the Gulf, not one thing. They have proven themselves as complicit and untrustworthy as BP has from the very beginning.
DS: Well the Joint Task Force has said some 1.8 million gallons of total dispersant applied, they are saying approximately 577,000 gallons still available, although nobody really seems to have set a clear limit. Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, a Democrat, has said that with the new documents about the dispersant, the validity of those numbers are now in question.
DJ: I am really glad that he is doing that because the validity of all of the numbers put out by BP and the government related to this disaster should be questioned, absolutely. I mean we have got the criminals cleaning up the crime scene. BP with the help of the federal government.
Right now, what's going on at the well? You know we have to take their word that there is a cap and that its holding and that appears to be the case. But we have no idea about seeps, and there has been a scientist reporting on seeps coming out of the area of the well head that could lead to a further degradation and another rupture in the future that would be far worse than what we just dealt with. (Scientist working for NOAA warns about oxygen loss from all of the seeps, methane gases, and plumes, in addition to the gigantic oil spill, see Dr. Samantha Joye, a marine biologist, here.)
Certainly, I think the amount of dispersant that has been used, and that they continue to use? I think it's very safe to assume that this roughly 2 million gallon figure that's been put out by the government and BP, I wouldn't trust that figure for a second. There is no way we could prove it. There is no way we can verify that that's all that has been used. We know that they are continuing to spray it. We know that they have lied, the Coast Guard, I've got a guy on tape lying on camera saying the dispersant have never been used in Florida, and the C-130s have never been used to dispense them in Florida and I've got eyewitnesses in several areas that directly contradict that.
I've got a guy in that piece that I talk about who was hit by dispersant from a C-130 just earlier this month off the coast of Florida. And that's just one example. I mean we could go on for hours on the amount of lying that's going on by BP and the government. We feel that this story that was released yesterday is very important in trying to bring some more attention to how insidious this is and what kind of program they are using to try to really cover up, temporarily at least, the scale of this disaster and to minimize BP's liability.
DS: What about one of your sources, James "Catfish" Miller. Tell us about the risks that he is taking and also what on earth he and others like him are going to do now?
DJ: Well these are open ended questions and there are not a lot of answers to those right now. I mean that is the big question that I think we need to keep bringing attention to is what are these people going to do? Right now another layer to it is just with the Vessels of Opportunity program, that was basically just set up to try to keep employed the fishermen whose lives were completely destroyed by this oil disaster. So it basically took on about 30,000 commercial fishermen and now they are cutting that program down by the day. So while that program has existed we have had this false economy along the Gulf where these people have been able to keep working and keep bringing money in and paying their bills, and those in the VOO program are making good money on the days when they are out there working. But that program is being cut away as we speak. I am going to be real surprised if there is much of it left at all in place in another two or three months from now. So when that's gone and that false economy is gone, what do these people have? They have nothing.
The scientists and the biologists I'm talking with are very clear about the fact that we are going to be looking at years of recovery if not twenty to thirty years. So when shrimping season opens up next year, or crabbing season, or various fishing seasons, and there is basically not much there to catch, then what do these people do? When there is not a VOO program? What do these people do then?
DS: But here you have a resident saying to you, "last week we were sitting on our boat and you could smell the chemicals. It smelled like death. It was like mosquito spray but ten times stronger". Then he says the following day he felt sick. There are so many witnesses, it's almost like why take the risk of telling these big lies which is what your report in Truthout.org is about?
DJ: I think there are people speaking up. There are fishermen like James Miller and others who are basically putting it all on the line because they feel that its so important that people understand what's really happening and how dangerous the situation is and the lies that are being perpetrated and kept going by the government and BP.
They are willing to just put it all out there because it's the moral thing to do and they are angry. They feel like they've been completely had, and left hung out to dry by the government that is supposed to be watching their backs in a situation like this. So that's basically why they are doing it. I think it's really an honorable thing for these guys to be doing and they are definitely putting all on the line by doing so. (See Dahr's update here.)
DS: Dahr Jamail, finally just comment on some of the headlines about Iraq this week, pretty grim. It's like 2004 all over again. You know a devastating car bombing, dozens of casualties, and in the news Nouri al Maliki (acting PM) and former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi: no government still, months after the election.
DJ: what is happening in Iraq now, I mean it's clockwork. You and I were predicting this stuff years ago Dori. And you know we have a government, it's a puppet government that can't stand on its own two feet, it was never set up to do so by the Americans, and now just in the last 48 hours we have seen General Petraeus saying, well you know we are on schedule to leave and we are going to have people out by 2011, the deadline just like we set up, but if you guys ask us to stay we'll stay. (See Dahr's August 20, 2010 story with Abdu Rahman in Inter Press Service News here.)
This comes in the wake of what was it last week the head general in Iraq says we won't be able to stand on our own until at least 2020, we are going to need the Americans to stay until then. So they were just laying out the propaganda, getting everybody ready, getting everybody primed up to digest the facts when they come out and say, oh well it looks like we are not going to be leaving after all we were ready to but the poor little Iraqis want us to stay. That's a very kind of tongue in cheek way to put it but I think it really clarifies how they have intended to run this thing all along. They have never had real intentions to pull out completely and I think that's what we are seeing right now.
One thing that has been a success for the empire project is that the western oil companies have over these last years managed to get a pretty strong toe hold into Iraq's oil market. So we've got several big oil corporations with the ability to start getting involved in Iraq's oil production and selling and profiting on that. That along with the permanent bases there, you know I've had people, when I have given talks about Iraq in the past say well couldn't you say from a Bush-Obama-empire-U.S.-empire-project perspective, say that that agenda did succeed?
I think as far as the permanent bases being there and the oil contracts for the western companies trying to get into Iraq's oil, I think you could argue that, that yes they have succeeded.
DS: Dahr Jamail thank you so much for joining us today.
For Talk Nation Radio I’m Dori Smith, this program is produced in Storrs, CT and syndicated with Pacifica Network. Talknationradio.org for an archive of our work, talknationradio@gmail.com to write to us. Our music is by Fritz Heede. (See our blog here).
DS/8-20-10
Other Talk Nation Radio interviews about Corexit, chemical dispersant used widely in the Gulf of Mexico by British Petroleum:
Thursday, July 22, 2010, Leaks, Pressure, and Storm Risks in the Gulf of Mexico, interview with Dr. Samantha Joye and q/a with National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen. She has also said the use of chemical dispersant presents another environmental problem, as they can be more toxic than the oil itself to some species.
BP Tries to Disperse Concern amid Calls for Prosecutions and Reform, Jun 10, 2010, Then, former EPA investigator Scott West joins us to go over BP's history of criminal negligence and catastrophe. He says the spill wouldn't have happened if the Bush administration and Justice Department had backed his effort to prosecute BP officials. Dr. Ira Leifer is on the Government's Flow Rate Tech Group. He confirms what he told the press, (McClatchy) that when you use BP's own assessment of a worst case scenario, you get more like 100,000 barrels per day as a flow rate. See transcript.
Talk Nation Radio for June 2, 2010, BP Spill litigation, Earth Justice Attorney Patti Goldman, Plus ADHD and other Affects from Pesticides.
See more here, and update on how massive use of dispersant chemicals in the Gulf of Mexico is making Nalco, the manufacturer's, stock go up here.
Underwriting for this program was brought to you by www.JeremyRHammond.com political analysis from outside the standard framework. Jeremy R. Hammond has been a guest on the show. He is founder and editor of ForeignPolicyJournal.com and a recipient of the Project Censored 2010 Award. In this month’s issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Jeremy discusses the impact of the war on Iraq with Mike Otterman, author of the new book “Erasing Iraq, The Human Costs of Carnage”. Also, see Deconstructing the Official Narrative on the U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq, Friday, August 20th, 2010.
