25 January, 2010 — RT.com
Peter Lavelle asks his guests why the US first sent troops to Haiti instead of water and food.
Day: January 25, 2010
Afghanistan: Bring the boys back home
25 January, 2010 — RT.com
The United Kingdom should stop fighting distant wars and meddling in global military matters. That’s the view of Kim Howells, who until last year was the minister responsible for Afghanistan. He says the recent succession of deaths there have been a turning point. They show it’s time for the UK to stop engaging at the very sharp end of UN military operations. Equally outspoken about the British role in the world’s battlefields is the Stop the War Coalition.
DEFEND THE RIGHT TO PROTEST ON BLAIR INQUIRY DAY
25 January, 2010 — STOP THE WAR COALITION NEWSLETTER No. 1136
TONY BLAIR’S “JUDGEMENT DAY” DEFEND THE RIGHT TO PROTEST
The police are aiming to keep protesters out of sight this Friday when Tony Blair appears at the Iraq Inquiry.
Today’s newspapers say the police are considering a ring of steel and an exclusion zone round the QEII Conference Centre in Westminster, where the Inquiry is held.
(See http://bit.ly/85Ba2Z)
This contradicts a statement by Scotland Yard yesterday that they aim to “facilitate the protest as best we can”.
Stop the War has demanded the right to protest on the grass immediately outside the conference centre. The police are refusing to say whether they will allow this.
To which Lindsey German, National Convenor of Stop the War, has responded: “It would be outrageous if the police were used to keep the public away from Tony Blair. Our right to peaceful protest must not be curtailed for political purposes. We are asking for the biggest possible turn out on Friday to defend the right to protest and make it clear to the world that the majority here think Tony Blair is guilty of war crimes.”
Among those attending the all-day protest are writers, musicians, Iraqi exiles, the families of soldiers killed in Iraq, well known actors, human rights lawyers and ordinary citizens from across the country. (Events timetable here: http://bit.ly/8mKM0T)
Military families who lost loved ones in Iraq will be joining the protests and 23 of them have written a letter to Blair requesting a personal meeting after he has completed his evidence:
“Our loved ones died in the Iraq war. This Friday we will be attending the Inquiry led by Sir John Chilcot. Please would you extend us the courtesy of a short private meeting after you have given your evidence to the Inquiry. If you could permit us 15 minutes out of your busy schedule we would be very grateful. This would assist the families in bringing some form of closure to the whole sorry episode of the Iraq war.”
They await Blair’s reply. He has refused repeatedly over the past six years all requests to meet with the bereaved families.
Please try to join Stop the War, the military families, CND and other organisations on Friday and publicise the protest as widely as you can.
Friday 29 January from 8.00am onwards
Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre Broad Sanctuary, London, SW1P 3EE
Nearest tube: Westminster
For a timetable of the day’s events, please go to: http://bit.ly/8mKM0T
Email office@stopwar.org.uk
Tel: 020 7801 2768
Web: http://stopwar.org.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/STWuk
Dangerous Crossroads: U.S. Moves Missiles And Troops To Russian Border Nuclear and Conventional Arms Pacts Stalled By Rick Rozoff
23 January, 2010 – Global Research – StopNATO
2010 is proceeding in a manner more befitting the third month of the year, named after the Roman god of war, than the first whose name is derived from a pacific deity.
On January 13 the Associated Press reported that the White House will submit its Quadrennial Defense Review to Congress on February 1 and request a record-high $708 billion for the Pentagon. That figure is the highest in absolute and in inflation-adjusted, constant (for any year) dollars since 1946, the year after the Second World War ended. Adding non-Pentagon defense-related spending, the total may exceed $1 trillion.
The $708 billion includes for the first time monies for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which in prior years were in part funded by periodic supplemental requests, but excludes what the above-mentioned report adds is the first in the new administration’s emergency requests for the same purpose: A purported $33 billion.
Already this month several NATO nations have pledged more troops, even before the January 28 London conference on Afghanistan when several thousand additional forces may be assigned for the war there, in addition to over 150,000 already serving or soon to serve under U.S. and NATO command.
Washington has increased lethal drone missile attacks in Pakistan, and calls for that model to be replicated in Yemen have been made recently, most notably by Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who on January 13 also advocated air strikes and special forces operations in the country. [1]
The Pentagon will begin the deployment of 1,400 personnel to Colombia to man seven new bases under a 10-year military agreement signed last October 30. [2]
This year the U.S. will also complete the $110 million dollar construction of new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania to house at least 4,000 American troops. [3]
Haiti and the Devil’s Curse
25 January, 2010 — The Real News Network
Mainstream news attributes Haitian poverty to the supernatural, avoiding history of foreign intervention
Danny Glover, Peter Hallward, and Anthony Fenton contribute to breaking down the media avoidance of Haiti’s history of foreign intervention. According to Hallward, Haiti’s poverty can be explained as a series of foreign responses to the independence and strength of the Haitian people, but since the media doesn’t acknowledge this, they are forced to propose weakness and bad luck as the sources of Haiti’s poverty. Glover adds that without the history, we are prone to misunderstanding and the blaming of the victim, which in some cases serves to absolve us of our own responsibility for the situation. Fenton reminds that it’s not only the U.S. that has taken part in undermining democracy in Haiti, in recent years Canada has played a very significant role, among others.
Bio
Peter Hallward is a Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University in England. In 2007 he published the acclaimed historical account of post-1990 Haitian politics, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment. He is the editor of the journal Radical Philosophy and a contributing editor to Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.
Danny Glover is a long-time actor and activist. While attending San Francisco State University, Glover was a member of the Black Students Union who along with the Third World Liberation Front led the five month strike. Not only did this help to create the first school of Ethnic Studies in the U.S., but it was also the longest student strike in the history of the United States. He is presently chair of the TransAfrica Forum, “a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the general public — particularly African-Americans — on the economic, political and moral ramifications of U.S. foreign policy as it affects Africa and the Diaspora in the Caribbean and Latin America”. Glover is the director of the upcoming movie Toussaint, detailing the life of Toussaint Louverture, leader of the Haitian Revolution.
Anthony Fenton is a Canadian-based independent researcher and journalist. He is the co-author of Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority. His work has been published by Asia Times, The Dominion, Foreign Policy in Focus, IPS, Mother Jones, Upside Down World, THIS Magazine, and others.
Haiti and the Devil's Curse
25 January, 2010 — The Real News Network
Mainstream news attributes Haitian poverty to the supernatural, avoiding history of foreign intervention
Danny Glover, Peter Hallward, and Anthony Fenton contribute to breaking down the media avoidance of Haiti’s history of foreign intervention. According to Hallward, Haiti’s poverty can be explained as a series of foreign responses to the independence and strength of the Haitian people, but since the media doesn’t acknowledge this, they are forced to propose weakness and bad luck as the sources of Haiti’s poverty. Glover adds that without the history, we are prone to misunderstanding and the blaming of the victim, which in some cases serves to absolve us of our own responsibility for the situation. Fenton reminds that it’s not only the U.S. that has taken part in undermining democracy in Haiti, in recent years Canada has played a very significant role, among others.
Bio
Peter Hallward is a Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University in England. In 2007 he published the acclaimed historical account of post-1990 Haitian politics, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment. He is the editor of the journal Radical Philosophy and a contributing editor to Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.
Danny Glover is a long-time actor and activist. While attending San Francisco State University, Glover was a member of the Black Students Union who along with the Third World Liberation Front led the five month strike. Not only did this help to create the first school of Ethnic Studies in the U.S., but it was also the longest student strike in the history of the United States. He is presently chair of the TransAfrica Forum, “a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the general public — particularly African-Americans — on the economic, political and moral ramifications of U.S. foreign policy as it affects Africa and the Diaspora in the Caribbean and Latin America”. Glover is the director of the upcoming movie Toussaint, detailing the life of Toussaint Louverture, leader of the Haitian Revolution.
Anthony Fenton is a Canadian-based independent researcher and journalist. He is the co-author of Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority. His work has been published by Asia Times, The Dominion, Foreign Policy in Focus, IPS, Mother Jones, Upside Down World, THIS Magazine, and others.
Why is the BBC’s Haiti coverage so appalling? By William Bowles
25 January, 2010
It’s perverse I know, but whilst the corporate/state media exhort us to donate for Haiti Relief, it is strangely silent on the issue of the US military occupation of this unfortunate island or why the earthquake caused such total devastation. An occupation that has undoubtedly led directly to the deaths of many Haitians. And this is not simply my opinion, it is borne out by the facts on the ground, or rather in the air, where many of the aid flights ended up, flying round and round or flying to some other place because the US military had occupied the airport, more concerned with ‘security’ than helping the victims.
As the US has effectively owned the island and its economy for over one hundred years, it is directly responsible for creating the living conditions that resulted in such enormous numbers of people killed and injured. But clearly it is more concerned with stopping desperate Haitians from trying to get to the US and securing US assets on the island than it is with the health of the Haitian people.
I’ve been scanning through the BBC News website almost every day to see what our ‘impartial’ and ‘objective’ state-controlled news organization has to say on the subject. So first I searched through my BBC RSS feed from the 15 January to today, 25 January, using Haiti as the keyword. Only one out of twenty-six stories on Haiti refers to the issue of the US role. However, the article has precious little say about it. Here are the references starting with an Italian government criticism:
Haiti's suffering is a result of calculated impoverishment By Seumas Milne
20 January, 2010 — The Guardian – Comment is free
Last week’s earthquake was a natural disaster, but the carnage is a result of a punitive relationship with the outside world
There is no relief for the people of Haiti, it seems, even in their hour of promised salvation. More than a week after the earthquake that may have killed 200,000 people, most Haitians have seen nothing of the armada of aid they have been promised by the outside world. Instead, while the US military has commandeered Port-au-Prince’s airport to pour thousands of soldiers into the stricken Caribbean state, wounded and hungry survivors of the catastrophe have carried on dying.
Most scandalously, US commanders have repeatedly turned away flights bringing medical equipment and emergency supplies from organisations such as the World Food Programme and Médecins Sans Frontières, in order to give priority to landing troops. Despite the remarkable patience and solidarity on the streets and the relatively small scale of looting, the aim is said to be to ensure security and avoid ‘another Somalia’ – a reference to the US military’s ‘Black Hawk Down’ humiliation in 1993. It’s an approach that certainly chimes with well-established traditions of keeping Haiti under control.
Haiti Newslinks 23-25 January, 2010
25 January, 2010
Cruising to Haiti
Do the images of cruise tourists playing on Haiti’s north coast, not far from scenes of devastation, evoke outrage or portend a path out of Haiti’s cycle of poverty?
mshaw.c.topica.com/maanJ5iabVOy1bLJGqTeafpKwO/
Anderson Cooper Saves Haiti
BAG looks at over-the-top and exploitive coverage of earthquake victim recoveries in Port-au-Prince
mshaw.c.topica.com/maanJ5iabVOy5bLJGqTeafpKwO/
Hope for Haiti Now’ telethon sets new record at $58 million and counting
USA Today
The star-studded Hope for Haiti Now telethon this past Friday brought in millions of viewers and dollars for crucial Haiti relief efforts. …
content.usatoday.com/communities/kindness/post/2010/01/hope-for-haiti-now-telethon-sets-new-record-at-58-million-and-counting/1
Next News From Haiti: Pulling Out
New York Times
Anderson Cooper of CNN in Haiti last week. Soon, he laments, “people are just going to lose interest in this as a story.” By BRIAN STELTER The CNN anchor …
www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/business/media/25coverage.html
Death Toll Rises in Haiti Quake Rises to 150000
Voice of America
More than 110000 people have been confirmed as killed in Haiti’s devastating earthquake, the Interior Ministry said, making it the deadliest on record in …
www1.voanews.com/english/news/americas/Death-Toll-Rises-in-Haiti-Quake-Rises-to-150000-82564527.html
Bellerive Says Reports of Haiti Violence Aren’t True
Bloomberg
24 (Bloomberg) — Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said today that the country is “calm” and that reports of major violence in the Caribbean nation …
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a7JhPXy2qs8c
The New Dark Age 
