History in Late March of 2013

President Barack Obama met up with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres in Tel Aviv. The peace process is unknown as to its future. The President is expected to come to speak to Israeli students and visit Palestinian territories. Folks want him to deal with the controversial issue of settlements in the West Bank. Netanyahu is a hardliner and is nowhere near a moderate. The President in some circles has even been slandered as some anti-Semite for advocating quaint concessions from the Israelis on the issue of settlements on the West Bank. Once, President Barack Obama wanted a settlement freeze to the Jewish Home party. The President is focused on other foreign policy issues not just on over the overall peace process since he wants to establish a stronger bond with Israel without talking about the occupation of territories (in more prominent terms). Many protesters against Obama are in the area since they believe that the U.S. is backing Israel's occupation. Israel wants U.S. support for a possible military intervention in Iran and for the U.S. to back the heavily terrorist filled rebels in Syria. The rebels and the government of Syria accuse each other of using chemical weapons in Syria. The Obama administration said that if it is proven that the Syrian government utilized chemical weapons in combat then they will execute a more militant policy in Syria (which could mean giving the rebels weapons). The reality is that the White House is wrong to allow Gaddafi to die without due process, funding terrorists in Libya & Syria, and sending troops via Africom as a means to occupy the African continent (as a means to buffer the China hegemony in Africa). Justice is what we need. We need justice for Rachel Corrie, Furkan Dogan, and others being harmed by extremists. It is ironic that Netanyahu once wanted Mitt Romney to be President and the President wants to ally with him. Right now, numerous Iranians suffer without food and medicine because of the murderous sanctions executed by the West. This is the 10th anniversary of the occupation of Iraq and some want a Western empire to rule the land.

 

 


 

There can be no full understanding of the Cold War without learning about Ronald Reagan. Reagan followed the alarmist Committee on the Present Danger. Reagan said that, "We’re in greater danger today than we were after Pearl Harbor. Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country.” (Stone/Kuznick, p. 436)  The Reagan administration saw one of the largest peacetime defense build ups in American history. Reagan loved supply side economics. He lowered the top income tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent. The combination of profligate military spending and large tax cuts caused annual national deficits. These deficits were unprecedented at the time. It created pressure to slash programs benefiting the poor.   William Casey was a hardliner and he was once head of the CIA under Ronald Reagan. The Soviet threat was hyped up by the West during the 1980's. The Soviet Union by that time was heavily weakened. The Soviet’s military and domestic services were decreasing. Folks were even criticized if they publicly expressed that truth. Even a young Robert Gates worked in CIA jobs, but he talked about the Soviets are on the march rhetoric as a means to justify huge military spending. The Reagan administration funded reactionary death squads in Latin America, because they felt that the Soviets had a huge influence in Central and Latin America. Reagan sent $5 billion in aid to El Salvador, where right-wing leader Roberto D’Aubuisson was running death squads. These squads in the employ of wealthy landowners and the U.S.-trained military were conducting its own massacres of peasants. The village of El Mozote had a huge massacre. This was when a Salvadoran army battalion systematically massacred hundreds of civilians including young children. Ray Bonner of the New York Times exposed this tragedy. Yet, some from the Wall Street Journal and other periodicals attacked his credibility. The Times was intimidated and they pulled Bonner off his Central America assignment. Reagan kept on supplying such governments in El Salvador, etc. in grants of aid. Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams still criticized Bonner as not credible. The CIA worked with Argentina's intelligence services in training rebels in Nicaragua to attack its leftist government. The leftists overthrew the dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. The CIA/Argentine manufactured group was called the Contras. The Boland Amendment passed by Congress banned military aid to the Contras. Reagan still authorized extra funds to be sent to the Contras, which was hidden from Congress and the American human beings. By 1985, Reagan was selling arms secretly to Iran as a means to get help in freeing American hostages who were seized in Lebanon. The scandal exposed CIA Director Casey and NSC official Oliver North doing it as a means to fund the Contras. The Contras worked with the Latin American drug dealers and send drugs into America. The Iran Contra scandal for the most part escaped President Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush form serious political damage (instead of North, Casey, and other subordinates). Reagan invaded Grenada as a means to end the Vietnam Syndrome or the perception that America relinquished military morale and emotional strength since Vietnam. The effort was later picked up by President George H.W.  Bush with his invasion of Panama in 1989 and the First Persian Gulf War in 1990-91 after which Bush declared, “we’ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all.” The Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was heavily influentially in ending the Cold War. Regardless if you agree with his politics or not, he was more moderate in his agenda than Stalin evidently. Gorbachev negotiated with Reagan for deals and concessions. He did so until he was deposed by a hardline coup in 1991.  The pro-communist coup was, in turn, defeated by the pro-capitalistic forces under Boris Yeltsin. As American free-market ideologues descended on Russia as advisers, the Russian economy collapsed and corrupt oligarchs plundered the country’s wealth through privatization in the 1990’s. The Cold War allowed the intelligence communities of both sides to harm authentic nationalist movements. The so called communist threat was exaggerated as a means to strengthen Western Europe. The Cold War executed the fiction that only capitalism or communism were the only feasible economic options for any human to embrace. Even the brilliant Joel Skousen, Anthony Sutton, and other scholars have documented how mainstream capitalists and mainstream communists collaborated with each other. The weakening of Russia for a time caused America to have a huge political hegemony in the 21st century.  


The War on Drugs has a lot of folly as we all realize. June 17, 1971 was the date of the beginning of the war on drugs. That time was in a controversial era in American history. The Vietnam War still dragged on. There were over 200,000 war protesters converging on Washington in April of 1971. 12,000 individuals were arrested during May of that year when anti-war demonstrations came in the capital. Nixon hated many of the young anti-war protesters and called them bums. Nixon used the police to crack down on dissenters in America with the support and aid of J. Edgar Hoover. Globally, the CIA and other federal agencies found themselves working with paramilitary groups implicated in the drug trade, from Central America to Afghanistan, even as U.S. propagandists tried to discredit Washington’s enemies by linking them to the drug trade. Now, we have the war on drugs and the war on terror in the globe. The drug war increased gangs just like gangs rose during the drug prohibition era of the 1920's and the 1930's. When the price of an illegal drug is his enough, you will have organized gangs fighting for the selling of the drugs. Anti-drug laws have existed in the past, but the war on drugs evolved into being more repressive, more controversial, and more anti-community. A drug free America is nearly impossible now with drugs in our food, water, and air. We have a record amount of human beings using prescription drugs. Some human beings sincerely need these drugs and others abuse them in a hurtful fashion. People from across the political spectrum (not just leftist activists) have exposed the errors as found in the war on drugs. A recent report by the United Nations' Global Commission on Drug Policy admitted that the aggressive suppression of drug use doesn't work and made matters worse. “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world,” the commission’s report declared. “Vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures directed at producers, traffickers and consumers of illegal drugs have clearly failed to effectively curtail supply or consumption.” The report wants some solutions. The commission wanted a new course as a means to solve the issue of drug addiction and drug abuse. The commission wanted a new approach in solving this issue with the following proposals: "...End the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others. … Encourage experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens.” The commission doesn't want paramilitary police forces to curtail civil liberties. It wants no global drug prohibition regime. It wants fiscally responsible policies and strategies that deal with science, health, security, and human rights (without worshipping political convenience). Many human beings have been imprisoned or alienated from society as a result of the volume and usage of illegal drugs not being curbed. Many conservatives like former Secretary of the International Chamber of Commerce Maria Cattaui, Paul Volker, etc. believe in the same conclusions as the report. The Law Enforcement Against Prohibition accepts this point of view. The LEAP is an organization of U.S. officials involved in enforcing the war on drugs (which is made up breaking down the doors of people's homes in nighttime raids, arresting minor players in the drug trade, prosecuting young citizens for simple drug possession, and allowing many thousands of individuals convicted on non-violent drug charges). Presidential administrations for decades have followed this policy of the war on drugs. The Mexican killings of innocents now proved that Mexico's war on drugs aren't working.  The commission mentioned that: "The Obama administration continues to fund Mexico’s war on drugs even as the killings increase faster each year (e.g. a 40% rise in killings from 2008 to 2009 and a nearly 60% rise from 2009 to 2010).” LEAP has cited some progress in 14 states. They have decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana and the expansion of legally prescribed medical marijuana, now available in 16 states and the District of Columbia. Other states are expected to vote on measures to legalize and regulate marijuana in 2012, LEAP said. LEAP is made up of current and former police, prosecutors, judges, etc. They know firsthand about how radical prohibition worsens drug addiction and illicit drug market violence. It includes more than 40,000 human beings in more than 80 countries. Billions of dollars funding the failed war on drugs are ruining the lives of many young Americans and their families. This is also strengthening ruthless organized crime gangs. This war on drugs is big business in American and in the world. These gangs exist in every demographic. We should advance drug addiction as a health care issue.

 

The Iraq War was evil for numerous reasons indeed. The Iraq War was wrong. It was a war of aggression. There were no WMDs in Iraq that could threaten American soil and there was no firm collaborative link between Iraq and al-Qaeda in an extensive fashion at all. We know that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq long before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. We know that this invasion even violates the UN Charter. The U.S. signed this Charter back in 1945 after WWII. The Charter allows nations to use military force against another nation only in self-defense or with Security Council permission. Yet, the U.S. led invasion was neither satisfying some condition of the UN Charter. It was a war of aggression, which makes it a crime against peace that the Charter wanted to prevent. Bush Jr. said that the war in Iraq was needed as a means to protection Americans from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction or WMDs. The neo cons wanted to further politically dominate the oil rich Middle East. This is easily documented in the September 2000 report prepared by the neoconservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC).  The report, commissioned by Dick Cheney, outlines a plan “to maintain American military preeminence that is consistent with the requirements of a strategy of American global leadership.” It notes that while “the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” There was another document, which was produced for Vice President Dick Cheney's secret Energy Task Force. The document had a map of Iraqi oilfields, refineries, pipelines, and terminals including charts (that described Iraqi oil and gas projects). The “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" was another document that was dated on March 2001, which was six months before 9/11  and 2 years before Bush invaded Iraq. By early 2003, the Bush administration attacked Afghanistan and removed the Taliban from power. Yet, they wanted to also attack Iraq all along. So, they sold the war on the lies of weapons of mass destruction, ties to al-Qaeda in a hardcore level, and its complicity indirectly with 9/11. An August 2006 report prepared at the direction of Rep. John Conyers, Jr. found that “members of the Bush Administration misstated, overstated, and manipulated intelligence with regards to linkages between Iraq and Al Qaeda; the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iraq; the acquisition of aluminum tubes to be used as uranium centrifuges; and the acquisition of uranium from Niger.” The report also noted that “[b]eyond making false and misleading statements about Iraq’s attempt to acquire nuclear weapons, the record shows the Bush Administration must have known these statements conflicted with known international and domestic intelligence at the time.”  So, it is known that the Bush administration overstated or misstated intelligence information about chemical including biological weapons. The report concluded that “these misstatements were in contradiction of known countervailing intelligence information, and were the result of political pressure and manipulation.”  In other words, the Bush regime misused the information about the WMD threat as an excuse to invade Iraq. On 9/11, the Bush administration was told in the President's Daily Brief that the intelligence community had no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime has anything to do with 9/11. There was scant evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties to al-Qaeda. The reason is that Hussein ran a secular government that suppressed religious activity while al-Qaeda was made up of religious extremists. The Bush administration still said that Iraq aided al-Qaeda members. Although the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) determined in February 2002 that “Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Laden any useful [chemical or biological weapons] knowledge or assistance.”  A February 2002 DIA memo said that al-Libi gave American interrogators false material about Iraq training al-Qaeda to use weapons of mass destruction.  al-Libi's false testimony was one major part of Colin Powell's now discredited February 2003 claim before the United Nations that Iraq had developed WMD programs.  Bush and Donald Rumsfeld wanted plans to attack Iraq as early as 2001. Former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz argued that war against Iraq might be "easier than against Afghanistan." The 9-11 Commission Report noted that as early as September 20, 2001, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith suggested attacking Iraq in response to the 9/11 attacks. In late November 2001, Bush instructed Rumsfeld to develop an Iraq war plan.  "What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq?" Bush asked.  "What is the status of the war plan?  I want you to get on it.  I want you to keep it secret." The Security Council never authorized the war in Iraq. The Western use of cluster bombs, depleted uranium, and white phosphorous gas were real weapons of mass destruction. Children have been injured and killed by these weapons. The Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in time of War (Geneva IV) classifies “willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health” as a grave breach. The US War Crimes Act punishes grave breaches of Geneva as war crimes. The Bush administration is committed war crimes with its use of these weapons. The Nuremberg Charter defines “Crimes against Peace” as “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing.” Bush’s war on Iraq is a war of aggression, and thus constitutes a Crime Against Peace.  So, a war of aggression is still immoral and wrong as said by U.S Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson.

 

As black human beings, our battle is not just physical; it is spiritual and psychological too. In a white supremacist society, the enemy would use clever tactics and mind games as a means to have control over the masses. In this generation, we have more access to the truth and real wisdom than any other time in human history. The movement for black liberation is still very strong. A great lesson in our lives is the advancement of better relationships among both genders here. I do believe that the enemy readily use a divide and conquer strategy as a means to harm relationships in the black community, but we should be above the fray. I am not going to degrade any human being unfairly and I will always show respect to all black human beings as a I am black myself. We ought to not scapegoat each other for every issue in the world and we should work together in finding solutions. Working together means not expressing naiveté about the struggle, but expressing a hope to overcome the obstacles and defeat the system of white supremacy once and for all. We have tried the action of radical post racial assimilation before decades ago. It doesn't work. What works is being with our own and handling our business with our own, which every other ethnic group in this country has done. It is not about showing undue malice or bigotry toward them or nonwhites (which is wrong), but appreciating our own common black heritage.  Research from Dr. Wright and the renowned historian Dr. Anderson Thompson outline the truth that black African peoples of the world should embrace real African principles and not be mentally brainwashed by the oppressor.

 

By Timothy